Getting Set for the Convention (and a Birthday!)

Strategically placed to catch either the RI shuttle bus from the Four Seasons Hotel, or the Skytrain, we found ourselves on the latter making our way up to the Impact Convention Centre, the bus having just departed and the next one being a 30 minute wait.  A wise choice as we were to discover later.  The Skytrain whisked us off to Mo Chit terminus, next to the Chatuchak weekend market, a teeming mass of humanity around 8,500 stalls selling, well just about everything really!

We concluded that the Host Organisation Committee (HOC) must have commandeered just about every single bus available in Bangkok for the Convention – ours took us the 20 minute final section to a collection area from which the last leg across to the Convention Centre was made.  This being the second day of registration there were no queues and we quickly did the rounds of official badge, bag, Skytrain passes (a roughly £10 freebie from Thai tourism!), obligatory ribbons of distinction and also completing the official voting delegate processes. 

 All the formalities over we got down to the serious business of visiting the House of Friendship.  In a hangar-like the room the HOC had created a superbly welcoming area full of stalls from vendors, Rotary Action Groups, partners and club projects, together with entertainment.  For the peckish (and we were) there were a selection of food stalls, each priced at around £1 for a main course – rather better value than our last Convention experience at the NEC in Birmingham!

Our return journey was much like the outbound – we arrived at the collection area to find our Route 1 bus had just departed and so returned to Mo Chit and the Skytrain return.  Again an hour door to door seemed par for the course.

For the evening we went off on an adventure!  Joan was celebrating quite an important birthday and so I’d researched the vegetarian restaurant options in the city, settling on Na Aroon, at the Ariyasom Villa.  Set in a converted 1942 Thai teak house in the centre of the city, what is now a 25 room boutique hotel is surrounded by modern high rise buildings and the taxi route there seemed to go through car parks, and entrance thoroughfares for palatial office and hotel buildings before coming to a halt in an oasis of calm.  Build during the Japanese occupation period by the grandfather of the wife of the current owner, expat Brit David Lees, the restaurant serves predominantly vegetarian food, NOT cooked in the ubiquitous fish sauce with a limited number fish and white meat options.  We put ourselves in the hands of the maître d’, a graduate from the Blue Elephant restaurant in Fulham (part of a worldwide chain).  Our faith was entirely justified, a sumptuous meal was brought to us, preceded by cocktails and accompanied by a Thai wine.  Desserts brought a return to the more traditional (to us) British creation of Apple Crumble, Chocolate tart and Kumquat tart, all prepared by mine host!  Brilliant atmosphere, superb food and outstanding value.  Tell all your friends!