Tag Archives: railway

At Home in Woodmancote, Visits to People and Places

Animals and Steam Trains (what more could a little boy want?)

Towards the end of August we had a visit from Tom, Emily and  Rory.  On the first day, with Emily’s nose fixed firmly to the legal grindstone, we took the ‘boys’ off to a garden centre near Swindon.  ‘That’s a bit harsh‘, I hear you cry, ‘what did they do wrong to deserve that particular fate?‘  Ahh, but this wasn’t just any old common-or-garden garden centre.  This was a garden centre with a petting farm, a butterfly room and a reptile house!  All you had to do was cough up a few bob and fight your way through an enormous warehouse full of tat to find the way in.  As we’d somehow managed to pick a lovely day, and most of the animals appeared to be quite sociable (once they’d sussed that we had food) it was an altogether pleasant experience.

The following day, with Emily’s nose temporarily removed from the grindstone, we headed off to the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR for short).  Despite having lived here for 17 years this was an experience that we’d carelessly missed – more fool us, because it was an excellent day out.  What boy between the ages of nearly three and 72 doesn’t just love steam trains?  I think that even the girls may have enjoyed themselves.

Thailand

Out and About in Bangkok

The flight from Sydney to Bangkok went as planned – fortunately our kamikaze Russian minibus driver wasn’t at the controls.  As we learnt afterwards, our flight over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam was around six hours after the Malaysian Airways flight to Beijing went missing in the same area – not a nice thought.  Bangkok airport was bathed in bright smog/haze but the temperature was still a cosy 34o with humidity right up there.

After the rural peace and quiet of New Zealand  the Bangkok experience comes as a bit of shock – noisy, not a little bit smelly, crowded as hell and you take your life in your hands whenever you atempt to cross the road.  The moped riders are the worst and the safest thing is to expect them to attack you from any direction at any time.IMGP4583Our itinerary (how to squeeze a quart into a pint pot):

IMGP4484Day One.  Covered Market (15,000 stalls, its enormous), Skytrain, River Taxi, Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo.

 

IMGP4647Day Two.  Jim Thompson’s House, the MBK and Pantip Malls (dodgy software), Wat Pho, sat on the riverbank to get an evening photo of Wat Arun and then walked down past the Flower Market to get a street meal in Chinatown.

DSCN7612Day Three.  Made our way to the central railway station and took the train to Ayutthaya (about 70km north, former capital of Siam until sacked by the Burmese in 1787) and toured the temple ruins by tuk-tuk.  Rode an elephant!  Excellent day only marred slightly by my new lens deciding to fall apart for no particular reason.  The railway system is fascinating  – on the way there we went  by 2nd Class train (they have different classes of train , not carriages) which cost the princely sum of 345 bhat each (around £7), coming back we travelled 3rd Class (no aircon, but with the windows wide open it was fine) at a cost of 20 bhat (40p) each.  Wonderful!

Day Four.  Washout – I succumbed to a case of Bangkok Belly and was laid low for much of the day.  We managed a short shopping expedition around midday and an evening meal in a Japanese restaurant but for much of the day my attention was elsewhere. IMGP4562 IMGP4642 IMGP4522 IMGP4676