Very serious adventures.com

Yes, it’s on the map. It is the piece of water between South Australia and Kangaroo Island and I’m glad to say I cruised up and down the backstairs passage.

So this is a quick zoom through of events so far on the Woolley Butt street to Useless Bay tour 2018. I started in Bangkok then flew to Adelaide, staying at the Majestic Minima Art Hotel and in search of the backstairs passage.

Adelaide is lovely. Just that, lovely. From the moment I got off the plane people were friendly, gracious and in some cases went out of there way to be kind. The hotel is a great concept were they asked local/Australian artists to design a room. The result is an exciting cornucopia of ideas and visual images. It’s in north Adelaide but walking distance, across parks, or a free bus ride to town. Yes free, free bus service! There are two, an inner city loop and an outer city loop, I just sat on one one day until it returned to my stop, free air conditioned sight seeing tour, boom!

Visited the zoo (to see the pandas) the art gallery, museum, botanic gardens, shops (!) and of course had a day trip to kangaroo island. I think it’s a beautiful city, not very big, gentle, welcoming and full of green space. Lovely. The only tricky issue with Adelaide for me was the weather, ( well I am British, national obsession). When I did a check of world temperatures the average for the end of summer in Adelaide was late twenties early thirties. Do-able I thought. Like a hot summer in London. But no, no recent years have seen temperatures rise, it was late thirties and on one day 40C.

I refused to complain, i did an emergency clothes shop, drank gallons of water and walked slowly. It was amusing when it came to the zoo, quite rightly nearly all the animals were hidden either inside (one zoo keeper told me the animals had air conditioning in their cages/dens) or right at the back in the dark reaches of their enclosures. There were young mums dragging round hot whimpering children moaning “where are they Mummy?” I didn’t mind, I was there to see the pandas, who were munching away bamboo and looking like even cuter versions of Paddington Bear. I almost expected them to start chatting and I felt a sudden panic that I had no marmalade sandwich to offer. But like the rest of the hot tired animals they went off to sleep so I spent most of the rest of the visit trying to get a picture with a photo board or statue of a panda, that looked like I was with the real thing. Sensible use of time. The results are for you to decide.

The trip to kangaroo island will have to go in the book (am writing a best seller, obviously) as it is too epic for the blog. However the result of the day was I decided not to go on any more coach trips! The sailing back to the mainland was delightful with sunset, light breeze and a comical Thai family re in acting the famous Titanic scene ( no, not sliding off the edge of a sinking ship screaming) of Jack & Rose. And indeed we were kings of the world, or at least kings of the backstairs passage.

Sunset up the backstairs passage. 

I got up early to be at the Palace for opening, but even at 8:30 in the morning it was bustling, mainly with coach parties of Chinese, and a general throng was gathering. Despite this I highly recommend going early, later on (apart from being hot enough to bake muffins) it’s completely rammed. As it was there was room to be amazed.

After buying a ticket and being scrutinised on appearance (it is only possible to visit if you are wearing long sleeved clothes and lose fitting skirts/trousers) it is seen as a sign of respect and modesty. Unfortunately the only trousers I had that would pass were my jeans (so I was once again dripping in sweat by the time I reached the hotel lobby). After that you are herded through turnstiles then turn the corner and bam! Gold! Every ornate tile, brick, balustrade visually molests you with its unbelievable shiny ness! It’s like Disney we’re asked to make a special gold anniversary Kungfu Panda set. Extravagant, stunning and in the real sense jaw dropping.

In fact despite being a lone wanderer I literally did a ‘Oooh’ and ‘WOW’ out loud. Then continued mumbling things like ‘gosh, well, isn’t it?! Well this is something’ and added a ‘Very fancy!’ out loud with typical English faint praise.

The truth is it is an amazing sight and so beautiful it’s almost overwhelming. I took my shoes off and queued to see the jade Buddha which is small, jade, but uber shiny, sat on a pyramid of other shiny things in a triumphantly gaudy manner. Only Thai were allowed to meditate here and despite the hubbub it was strangely serene.

I loved the palace itself with its clipped lawns and fantasy topiary. A lot of watering was going on to maintain the colonial lawns but again truly magnificent and thankfully lots of places to sit (and watch the coach parties rush by).

My exstensive and thorough research for my trip to Bangkok had consisted of watching ‘The King and I’ and downloading ‘One night in Bangkok’ (from the musical Chess) onto my playlist. I wasn’t intending on wearing crinolines (well not all the time) but as it turned out, despite the disappointing lack of Yul Brynner, the old Siam was still very much to be found.

I was staying in Bangkok’s old city, down by the river at The Aurum River Place hotel. Arriving a good four hours before I could check in I had to jump in the deep end and venture forth. It was almost as if someone had set a sound stage for ‘authentic Bangkok street scene’ because it was all there. Exotic street food vendors, market stalls, Buddhist monks, tuk tuks, workers in rags carrying giant sacks of rice on their backs, traffic police in white gloves (and wellies?) and the general smell of sweat mixed with cooking oil.

Even my hotel robe smelt like it had been deep fat fried. Or maybe it was me, I’m very sure I’d been deep fat fried.

As I’m struggling with both my cognitive abilities and fat thumbs at using and generally making sense of this blogging business (literally taken 2 days to publish one haphazard post!!!) I will be brief, post a load of photos and amuse you with my hilarious quips later on.

Wish me luck.

Wat Pho is the oldest Buddhist temple in Bangkok. I loved it, it’s got a beautiful calm atmosphere, huge lying down Buddha and amusing bins.

 

Welcome to the meanderings of an idiot. These are the tales of daring do and photographic evidence of my travels from Woolley Butt Street to Useless Bay.

After resigning from work last year I decided to have an adventure and see the world. But where to go? Where should you go when you have the whole planet to choose from? Easy. You find humorously named places like Fannie Bay and the ‘inside passage’ and set about plotting a route around the globe.

Where to begin? Well with the most appropriate (for the proceedings) city name of all . . . Bangkok.