Bangkok was added to the itinerary as all flights to Down Under have to stop over anyway, with most popular cities for that purpose being the most touristy spots in the Far East, namely Bangkok and Singapore. I had not been at either place, but everyone told me that Bangkok would be more interesting than Singapore, which has little to offer besides clean streets and high risers giving proof of a sound financial sector."The Oriental" is a Bangkok hotel which has been elected "Best Hotel of The World" by some publications, so it was evident where our first Thai taxi ride should take us. The hotel offered all the amenities of a true five-star resort, featured spectacular views of the river, was walking distance from "New Road", the officially first street of Bangkok (now home to most of the tailors-a-minute in town). And it could look back on a long history of successful operations, during which is had hosted many celebrity writers staying in its famous "Author's Suites".Moreover, with its pristine riverfront location, you could book a cruise on the hotel-operated vessel "Oriental Queen" up north to Ayuttaya, the ancient capital of Thailand, with its world-heritage classified temples and palaces. Which we did book for the next morning, in order to leave the smog and traffic congestions of ugly downtown Bangkok behind for a day. Our all-inclusive tour left by bus to Ayuttaya, stopping at two important temples, then taking us via the King's Summer Palace to the boat, on which we covered the distance back to the hotel (the Oriental Queen evidently docks directly in front of the Oriental Hotel).Let me admit that I do not like organized tours at all. You are regularly being carried by a bus having "ignorant tourists" written in big letters on it from Kodak picture viewpoint to picture viewpoint, guaranteeing not more than a few 100 feet walking distance each time, so that also elderly ladies in high-heeled sandals can make it. Contact to locals is reduced to the ticket warden at the sight entrance, and contact to local culture is reduced to taking pictures of well-restored castles, temples, or churches, which most often resemble each other astonishingly. And the way most participants look like, neither the locals nor them would really want to embark on a profound conversation - the vast majority of those day-trippers are either fat Americans in shorts, t-shirts and sneakers or swirly little Japanese fearing nothing more than to lose their guide, which would render them incapable to communicate with any non-Japanese in this dauntingly alien country. My motivation for conversation with this species was therefore reduced to a minimum. But talk among the group was not even necessary, as fortunately we were gifted with a Thai history student as our tour guide who did not get tired to repeat the same facts all over again. Let alone that it took him three sentences to utter the meaning of one normal one. He achieved this by repeating the same words in inverted positions back and forth, interjecting questions using - of course - these same words. ("You might ask why Thai have so many temples. Thai have so many temples because ... blablablah. That is why you will find many temples in Thailand."). As this tiring repetition got on our nerves quite soon, we would walk through the temples on our own, which had the unwanted side effect that we were finished in about half the time of the sandal-clad tourist group. However, the Summer Palace, our third stop, was quite fascinating. Gold and precious stones were sumptously used by its builders (mainly 18th century) to cover every square inch of the main temples. It is how you would envision a typical Far East temple after hou have seen the Chinese section of Disneyland.I was however glad to get onto the boat for a nice lunch buffet after the humid climate saw us sweat like dogs in the midday heat. Which then turned into napping away on a deck bench while yet another travel guide soothed my ears with a wordflow of stories about "...the river" and "... the city". These denominators would appear at the end of every other sentence, and the narrator pronounced his English Thai style, in a way that made those endings stand out in slightly higher singing pitch than the rest of the flow. No wonder I had a hard time not to fall into the river of dreams entirely; in which case I would have missed out on the fascinating change of homes and facilities along the riverside as we approached Bangkok center, with its vibrant mosaic arrangement of boats, cutting their way through the space in between the high risers sprawling up on either side of the water. Bangkok is definitely the city with the most traffic on the water I have seen. Which is understandable when you realize that for example luxury hotels only two blocks down from Sala Rim Naam (the allegedly best Thai restaurant in town) have shuttle boats running between the two sites. (The Oriental has such a shuttle too, but at least it is across the water).On our last day in Bangkok, we finally visited the Grand Palace, the very epicenter of Thai temple construction, which every guide prescribes as a must-see even if you have only hours available. Those guides are right - the splendor of the temples in this huge area (2.5 sqkm) set an extraordinary contrast to the ramshackle places that ordinary Thai people call their homes. No expense seems to have been spared for the golden arches of the towering roofs and grand portals of these magnificent temple palaces. And I was glad that we had not booked the all-inclusive tour again, so we could set our own (always faster) pace for visiting the grounds. Which also had left us more time for sleep and an extensive buffet breakfast on the outside veranda at the riverside.

A true recommendation for exceptional dining in Bangkok is the "Normandie" restaurant in the Oriental Hotel: This superb establishment would surely earn a Michelin star if it was in Paris. (For some reason, a location outside of France seems to imply a 1- to 2-star lower rating from the famous French restaurant testers. I know an excellent restaurant in my birthplace town that could easily cope with some 1- and 2-stars in Paris, of course at a fraction of the budget). Although the dress code is strictly old-style formal (even with an all-black suit and a black shirt they still will make you wear a tie), their creations are excellent, and their wine list is surprisingly long, with bottles from all over the world.