River trip in Bangkok

29th April

As the meeting wasn’t till 2pm we thought we would take a boat trip to the Grand Palace this morning. It was a great experience as it took us to some really interesting places. Bangkok used to be like Venice, without roads, so it was just like driving and exploring the back streets. We all felt like we had been given glimpses of the real life here not just all the touristy stuff. Unfortunately when we got to the Grand Palace it was closed until that afternoon as the king was there for a special service because it was the last day of the Songkran festival. Instead we got rather scammed by a tuk tuk driver who took us to a gem factory. It was rather interesting as they told us all about the different gems and history of the trade in Thailand, but they clearly expected us to buy something, which we didn’t! Next he stopped outside a tailors and told us that would we please go in as if we did he would get a coupon for 5 litres of gas free. How could we say no?? Anyway…talk about pushy those guy were not going to take no for an answer but we had to get back for lunch and to change for the meeting (thank goodness).
It was lovely seeing everyone again. They all asked us about what we had been doing and when we told them how long our trip is we got the same funny looks that we got back in France!!!! Great talk and watchtower but we decided not to stay for the book study as we had already done it and a 3 hr meeting just seemed a bit too much especially when the last hr was the Revelation book!!
Found a great book shop that sold loads of English books so we stocked up on some maths and science workbooks for the girls and reading books too.
Had a nice dinner back at Hippie HI on the Khao San Rd but we all got rather drenched in the rain on the way back.