JUST WORDS....

We managed another outing on transit and went to the BTK Mall.  It is a combination of stores and market type stalls.  The stores are fixed prices and the stalls are the bartering system.  We have made a few good purchases by holding a mess of bills out and saying – I don’t have any more. Works sometimes and sometimes you just have to walk away.  Most of   the time they are glad to make a sale.

The Hilton has been our least satisfying hotel experience of our journey.  It is definitely the most beautiful, but the least friendly.  The internet that we thought would be excellent, is not.   It is pay per use.  First one like that – free in the public areas, but then you are waiting for a portal and now there is none.  We are trying to negotiate a later check out for our journey tomorrow.  We get picked up for the airport at 8:00 p.m. for our 11:30 departure.  So far we have to be out of our room by 2:00 – we will try for a later time.  If that works, then maybe my opinion will change of this hotel but only slightly.

 

This morning’s journey will take us to the Grand Palace, the flower market, the reclining Buddha and the Jade Buddha and then we are on our own for the afternoon.  Right now, our tour guide says she will be late by as much as one hour so we are sitting in our room waiting for the phone call.  Certainly not the great experience we had for the 15 days in Cambodia and Vietnam.  I know there is traffic, but she lives here – not terribly impressed.  The upside is, it has given me some time to do a bit of catch up writing.

 As you can see from the window pic – the view is amazing.  I tried my luck with some night shots and although they will be good enough for my scrapbooking, they don’t look like much on the blog.  This is a much more modern and bigger city than I had imagined and especially after Saigon and Phnom Penh I just didn’t even imagine this.  The air quality is Phnom Penh was definitely the worst – here not as bad – still not the air like we know in beautiful BC but we haven’t had to put on a mask since then.