We arrive to look out of the cabin onto a container port, not the best view but the weather is hot already and its 9am in the morning. Today we are off on a tour into Bangkok called the Venice of the East. We need to be a little careful after getting a little bit too much sun yesterday but nothing drastic. Being fairly close to the equator there is a new found respect for the sun for many on-board. At breakfast in the Windjammer we see plenty of other red faces and some much worse, oops.

Off onto the air-conditioned coach for the journey into the heart of the city, it doesn’t actually take that long the new expressways are doing a great job at cutting down traffic on the outskirts of the city and it takes less time than expected to get to the river port. A quick comfort break and we get onto the boat.

We jet off at a fair rate up the river taking in the sights and sounds of Bangkok, the journey in highlighted how poor some elements of the country and city are but it has a charm that you can’t help fall in love with. The guide on the coach Kawe was infections in here passion for her country which made the whole day that little bit more special. We got to learn so much about every place that we went to you got a better view of things than if we had toured on our own.

We got to see some of the small canals that people lived on and the big Royal Barges that look good but only see the light of day every five years as part of a big celebration.

We then went onto the Temple of Dawn (Wat Arun) a very impressive and steep structure. At first its not too bad but then it goes even steeper before it gets almost vertical to get to top very top. Its pretty warm and the sweat flowing, nice I know, it was good that they gave us more water as part of the trip a nice touch.

We then went to the Fish Restaurant for a really nice buffet lunch along side the river and get some more drinks to keep us hydrated. Back onto the coach to the Grand Palace and oh my is it Grand.

On entering the complex you can look in every direction and see stunning architecture and more opportunities for pictures. It was a truly memorable day for these couple of hours along. Have a look at the gallery to see some of the pictures it certainly something that both of use will remember for a very long time.

We then took a route across the city where we got to see the almost gridlocked traffic at first hand, a quick stop off at a gem factory and then back to the boat for about 8.30pm. It was a long but very memorable day, it you are coming on this cruise I’d highly recommend this tour and seeing these sites if you are ever in Bangkok. I’m sure we only grazed the surface of the city but it was a good sample of what it had to offer.

I’m here righting this on the cabin balcony in Cambodia after a shall we say interesting trip into the town. More of that later I really should get it as its swelteringly hot in the port it feels close to 40degrees even in the shade and the laptop is struggling to keep itself cool.