Today we checked out of the Baiyoke hotel. It was lovely but the internet was so pricey and we had seen the view several times now, so we opted for a cheap and cheerful hotel with internet. The price difference turned out to be 600b at Baiyoke and 30b at the Malaysia Hotel. As we had so much stuff and we weren’t sure how far it was we popped out into the Pratnum area to have a final gift buying session. As usual we haggled away and got a whole heap of presents for people at great prices, then realised we had to carry them, always a down side! Laden like donkeys we dragged ourselves from where we left our main luggage at Baiyoke to outside and our bell boy grabbed us a taxi. We decided that whatever he said as long as it was reasonable we wouldn’t haggle, he turned out to be a fair man and gave us a price that wasn’t too high. The journey across town took ages. The traffic in Bangkok is notorious for being bad but this was like a giant car park. After we finally arrived and did a bit of smooth talking for a room (we hadn’t booked as our web site we are using doesn’t let you book for that night, it has to be the next day and we were off then, hopefully!)
After finally unloading our luggage we had a bit of an explore of the area and checked out a few more of the famous night markets, but we quickly realised our mistake. Baiyoke may have been an expensive hotel in an expensive area but the prices of everything there were much more reasonable and there was much more choice, which is especially important for a fatty like me as at the reduced size of a UK 10 (from eating lots of rice) I am unhappily an XXXL in Thailand. Not happy. I sulked and decided I wasn’t going to buy shorts with a label that said XXXL inside and decided that Phuket being smaller and not the capital city would be a better place to buy the ever elusive shorts. (I was sooo wrong!)