Bangkok- the old and the new

Bangkok is such a city of contrasts that it is difficult to work out what its true heart is. Towers of glass and concrete overshadow low rise old buildings. Magnificent wats of gold and glitter loom over klong dwellers who appear not to have changed their way of life from many centuries ago. 

A few views of the old contrasting with the new

My visit to the zoo:

I had not intended to go to the zoo but having walked what seemed miles to find Dusit Park and found only the zoo (the park itself is further on, I'd had enough by then!) it seemed logical to part with 200Baht to actually go into the zoo on the basis that I could feel I had actually achieved something in the day after the disappointment of the 'you absolutely MUST visit JimThompson's house' which I found frankly pretty boring. Herded around like sheep - only official tours allowed - with mainly elderly Americans paying homage to one of their own, a gawp at some elephants and tigers seemed like a sensible contrast. Needless to say the elephants had gone AWOL:

Mainly because their house is being rebuilt but I did try to locate John Lewis' Monty:

Don't think he was hiding in there but I did come across an interestingly named giraffe:

The logic of why you would name your giraffe Bin Laden rather escaped me!

Forgot to add a couple of photos from Jim Thompson's house so here they are:

I admit it was a beautiful series of teak houses but it was the being herded around that got to me! I  couldn't help but spend the entire tour doing a Jackie Mason (my husband will understand this reference!) and trying to work out how much the entire plot would be worth if it came up for sale!

So back to the zoo, must be the time of year but it was practically deserted, sadly that also included the animals, not much to see but a highlight was a hippo having its nose tickled by a visitor braver than me, my goodness hippos are ugly creatures (but I didn't mention that to the hippo while he had his mouth wide open!)

And a final thought: why do tourists devote so much time and money to visiting other countries and then go and have their lunch at a Burger King?  Answers on a postcard, please, as I have been here 4 whole days and have yet to come across anywhere selling postcards, so that's why none of you are due one so far. 

Off to Sukhothai tomorrow via Phitsanulok presuming the train runs as scheduled so 5 hours on that followed by a tuk tuk to the bus station then a one hour bus journey to Sukhothai then another tuk tuk to my accommodation, will be interested to see what that is like as it is all of 500Baht a night and that's a double! So if I were with a travelling companion that would cost us each the grand total of £2.50!

Hopefully will post news of my adventures at Wat Arun and the klongs later.