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Our third overseas tour was to Thailand. Unfortunately, due to a shortage of available seats, we were obliged to divide the band into two groups one which went directly to Bangkok via Johannesburg, and another which went to Bangkok via Singapore. We then travelled as a complete group to Pattaya where we stayed at the Royal Cruise Hotel for a number of days. Two trips were undertaken to an Island in the gulf of Thailand. We then returned to Bangkok and stayed at the Menham hotel which is situated on the banks of the river running through the centre of Bangkok. The hotel=s landing jetty proved to be an ideal spot where we could practice our music everyday without disturbing anybody. Being part of the Indo-Chinese sub continent meant that there was an enormous diversity of places to visit. The river taxis proved to be an adventure in themselves |
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The floating market,Wat-Po temple and hanging gardens all proved to be extremely interesting. The Thai people made us most welcome and we performed as guest band at their own national band competition. The standard of musicianship is extremely high in that country and we had fortunately done our homework well so were able to give good account of ourselves. Once away from our tours and performances we were able to take advantage of the remarkable bargains to be had insofar as clothing purchases were concerned. The girls in particular shopped up a storm and only realised their predicament once they weighed their baggage just prior to our return to South Africa. The group of students which flew via Singapore were fortunate enough to be able to spend two days in that country. Once more the underground railway system was our main form of transport but because our time was limited , the youngsters virtually had to run around Singapore in order to take in the main sights. That they were tired is evidenced by he fact that no sooner had they sat down in the aircraft to return to South Africa, they fell asleep waking only for their meals.
