Thailand Pt. 3: Back in Bangkok

Inside the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew

Ok, we're back with the final post of the Thailand travels trilogy.  After spending the better part of a week down south in Phuket and Ko Phi Phi, Judy and I arrived back in Bangkok, where we spent the last few days of our trip.  Since our flight back was in the evening, we didn't do much our first night other than check-in and grab a quick dinner.  We started off the next day with the always enjoyable breakfast buffet and a few hours of relaxation by the pool, which had great views of the city.  In the afternoon we went out and explored the neighborhood around our hotel.  The area is called Bo Bae and there are little markets pretty much everywhere you walk nearby.  Eventually we made our way to the Golden Mount, which is a temple/shrine semi-close to where we were.  There were bells lining the stairs up and down to the top of mount and we were told that it was good luck to ring the bells so that is exactly what we proceeded to do.  That evening we decided to get dinner in Patpong and explore the surrounding area.  Patpong is famous for its night markets, which we scoped out after another great Thai meal.  The great thing about these night markets is that it seems like every place sells the same goods and I suppose that makes sense, and like all markets, the price depends entirely on how well you can haggle.  I was tempted to get something, but in the end, I was able to walk away empty handed.  Patpong is also a pretty Western-friendly area and there are many restaurants and bars/clubs, but we decided to forgo those evening activities and made our way back to the hotel to rest up for a big day on Friday.

Friday was our big sight-seeing day in Bangkok.  We decided that this was the day we would go see the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew.  When we got to the palace gates, we found out that there was a special ceremony taking place in the morning and we would have to come back in the afternoon if we wanted to go inside.  We had a couple of hours to kill before we could go back and see the palace so after a little bit of haggling, we hired a tuk tuk driver to take us around on a mini tour of some temples/shrines relatively close to the Grand Palace.  Basically this meant more Buddhas and extremely ornate and colorful temples and now you can have a look at them as well.

 

Wasn't sure whether we could try this

After hitting our first three destinations our driver took us to his friends "the tailors."  As is the case in most countries in Southeast Asia, the tuk-tuk drivers get certain perks, like gas stamps, for bringing in customers to different businesses, like the tailor, etc...  So we ended up at two different tailors, staying the agreed-upon 10 minutes and doing our best to act like interested customers.  In the end, I'm pretty sure our driver didn't get his stamp and tried to change our agreed upon fare, but when we got back to the palace, I gave him the 40 baht we had originally agreed upon and said "Thanks" and that was that.  Just outside the palace we grabbed some excellent pad thai for lunch, definitely the best pad thai I had during the entire trip.  One of the rules for entering the temple is mandatory pants.  Friday was another 90F+ degree day so we decided we would just rent pants outside the temple.  These pants were amazing!  Very light and breathable, and pretty much parachute pants a la M.C. Hammer or Aladdin.

Can't Touch This!

 The Palace and the adjoining temple, Wat Phra Kaew, were very impressive and I'm glad we were able to get in to see them.  Check them out here:

Saturday was another day full of sightseeing adventures.  We made our way to Wat Arun, on the other side of the river, and Wat Pho (home of the massive reclining Buddha, man did he look comfortable).  Saturday was also another example of just how small the world is.  I found out about a week before we left for Thailand that one of my teammates from frisbee back in Madison had a roommate, Dan, who I had met many times before, that was teaching in Bangkok.  I let him know I was going to be in town, but we didn't really make any plans, because it was going to be a little difficult without a phone (crazy to think that 40 years ago people were able to meet up without any problems without using a cell phone or the Internet; also, scary to think how much we rely on technology now).  Wat Pho is in the same area as the Grand Palace, which is where Dan and his girlfriend were.  I was wearing one of my Madison Ultimate Summer League jerseys and as we crossed the street I was spotted by Dan.  Judy and I lucked out and we spent the afternoon with Dan and his girlfriend, who gave us a mini-tour of Khao San Road and the surrounding streets.  Khao San is pretty much foreigner/backpacker central and we just picked out a good bar where we could people watch.  It was a great way to spend our last day in Bangkok and it was wonderful to see Dan, who I hadn't seen in a few years, as well.  Eventually we arrived back at the airport to catch our 1:55 am red-eye flight back home.  Unfortunately our flight was delayed and the departure time was pushed back to 3:20 am, awesome :(.  We also ran into some other friends from Korea that were flying back on the same flight as well.  Finally we touched down back in Incheon at noon on Sunday.  All in all, a great vacation and I'm super excited to take off again tomorrow afternoon for Hong Kong!  Dragon parades and dim-sum here I come!

If you haven't seen them yet, my Thailand photos are posted on Picasa online.  The link for the album is on the right side of this blog under the "Links" section.  That's all from this end, hope everyone has a wonderful Lunar New Year, looking forward to bringing in the Year of the Rabbit (it's my year!).

What I'm listening to: "Come Running" by Van Morrison

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsxK7JOs74

Another great Van performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIiUwZfqMSU&playnext=1&list=PLAC8A93F365644289