Bangkok

If you’ve been reading these blogs in a row, then you know that the last one left off with me saying “Our next location had a nice mix of every kind of food. It also has many temples right next to a thriving metropolis.”

So, yes, you guessed it, from Phuket we headed to Bangkok! On Wednesday evening, Avery flew back to America, and then Thursday morning, Brad and I took the bus up to Bangkok. We were supposed to leave at 7:00 am, but the bus we were going to take had been in an accident and we got put on a different bus that left at 8:30 am. The bus we had paid for included a meal (so we didn’t have breakfast), but the bus we had been put on did not, so we ended up starving all morning, until finally the bus stopped for a lunch break. For lunch, I had some vegetables that were served on top of rice, and Brad ate something spicy. He likes spicy food, but this dish was making him drink quite a bit of water! He claims it wasn’t bad, but I think he just won’t admit it.

Then, after lunch we had to get back on the bus and continue sitting in the rock hard bus seats for 8 more hours, making our total trip time 14 hours. We got off the bus, and there were a swarm of taxi drivers trying to grab our bags from us, to help us into their cab. We went with one guy, and he tried to charge us 1000 baht ($30) for the ride, which we knew should only cost 150 baht ($4.50). We refused to pay that price and got out of his cab and went and found a different one. We’re on a budget and can’t afford to be getting scammed!

The second cab driver used the meter for his price and it was around 150 baht for our ride to the apartment we were staying at. I’ve stayed at a few different places through airbnb, and always have had fantastic hosts, and this place was no exception. We stayed in a cute little apartment, located in a residential neighborhood right downtown Bangkok. The location was great, and we were able to walk everywhere we wanted to go.

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After getting a good nights sleep, we got up and wandered down to the shopping district. We don’t have very much room to carry anything else in our backpacks, so we were only shopping for a few specific items. I needed a coat and Brad needed hiking boots. (spoiler alert: the next location we are going is India, where we will be doing an 8-day trek through the Himalayas) It was a struggle to find this stuff, especially because it is so warm in Thailand that nobody would ever need a coat, which is exactly the reason I didn’t bring one from home. I pretty much only brought shorts and t-shirts, so hopefully I’m moving enough to stay warm while at those high altitudes. But enough about India, right now we’re in Thailand, enjoying our last few days here. 

As we finished out our time here, we took in the new Thailand at the shopping malls and the ramen restaurant we ate at, and then on the next day, we took in the traditional Thailand by seeing the Wat Pho and attempting to see the Grand Palace.

Wat Pho has the huge reclining Buddha and here are some pictures of it and the temple.

For the Grand Palace, they succeeded at scamming us by telling us that it was a Thai holiday and that the Palace was closed until later in the afternoon. They said we could go visit other temples while we waited and called us a tuk tuk to take us around. It all seemed great until after the tuk tuk driver had taken us to a different temple with a tall standing Buddha, a man came up to us and started talking about suits. We really didn’t understand why he was telling us that, but then when the tuk tuk driver took us to a suit store, it all made sense. We said we didn’t want to buy a suit but they insisted we go in and see them. When they finally realized that we were not there to buy anything they got upset and the tuk tuk driver took us back to the Grand Palace instead of to the other temples we had been told we would see.

We arrived back earlier than the time that we had been told the Grand Palace would be open to tourists, and there was plenty of tourists inside. So it turns out the whole thing was a scam and it wasn’t even a Thai holiday. We were a little upset about the whole ordeal, and then when we went in to the Grand Palace, we were told we had to buy clothing to cover our knees to go in. Now I know, that you can borrow a sarong and give it back at the end of your time at the Palace, but they were insistent that we had to spend more money. Basically between the scam, them trying to scam us again, and all of the tourists, we said we simply wanted to go back to the apartment we were staying at and go for a swim, and that’s exactly what we did.

We then had some dinner at a quiet Thai restaurant right next door to the apartment, and finally cuddled up and went to bed. Seriously, we were exhausted because we had walked all the way in to the Grand Palace and Wat Pho and then walked back to the apartment; close to 15 miles according to my phone.

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On our last day in Thailand, we woke up and took a taxi out to the floating market. Now there’s a big tourist floating market about 100 km away from town, but I wanted more of a traditional experience. To get that experience, we ended up going to a smaller floating market with only about 15 boats. Nevertheless, it was still a cool experience filled with boats that look like this. 

Then after looking around and eating a very weird omelet with bean sprouts, peanuts, and something sweet in it, we decided to go on a boat tour that took us down the canals of Bangkok. Here's a picture of what we saw!

Riding along, it seemed as though we were no longer in Thailand, but rather that I was back in Venice. The ride was peaceful and allowed us to see Bangkok from a new perspective. Here's another picture, to help you imagine something other than the hustle and bussle of the city.

After we had our fill of the canals and floating market, we grabbed a cab and headed back to the apartment. We then spent the afternoon doing laundry and getting ready for our flight to India.