We took a taxi from our hotel towards the Flora Expo but discovered that there were traffic restrictions near the site. After some debate the taxi dropped us about 200 metres from where the driver thought the entrance to be. Unfortunately, he proved to be wrong so we ended up wandering around the car parks before we saw directions to the main gate.
This was certainly a poor start and when we saw the lines of people waiting to enter we were put off even more. As we neared the lines we realized that these were people waiting to get entrance tickets and because we had pre-purchased ours, we were able to walk right on by. That lifted the spirits a bit.
The entrance statement was a group of Australian boab trees and these were certainly causing some excitement. The Australian boab tree (Adansonia gregorii) is related to the Madagascan and African Adansonia species known as baobabs. Like its relatives it is sometimes called a "bottle tree." All Adansonia species, Australian and African, have long been used as a staple food source by the indigenous populations. Studies on the species have shown parts of the tree to be exceptionally high in Vitamin C, more than ten times the Vitamin C content of oranges! We didn’t eat any of the trees but like many other people, we did take a couple of pictures.
Once inside the gates, map in hand, we decided that the smart thing to do was to catch the public road trains that circled the site. These cost Bt 30 and were advertised as doing a 30-minutes round-trip. This enabled us to get a quick appreciation of the whole site and decide which areas we wanted to spend most of the time. Unfortunately, we did about 90% of the circuit but were then told that everyone had to disembark because the trains had to do the remainder of the circuit empty. We then had a long walk to where we wanted to start our exploration.
Despite this somewhat shaky start to our day, from here on things improved considerably. We loved the country pavilions, the orchid house and garden and the magnificent Royal pavilion. In fact, when it was time to go, we wanted to stay and see more. The only problem was that nine hours of walking and looking had taken its toll and the body was just not up to it.