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Published: January 16th 2008
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We arrived in Bangkok on the 13th. We were welcomed by a customs guy who yelled at me for standing on the "Please Stand Here" marking on the floor - apparently the instructions were wrong? As a punishment he asked about 6 people from behind to pass us in the line up. After our long trip, I was not yet impressed with our intro to Thailand.
We got to our guesthouse and checked in. Then headed out to the street to get some food. We found our way to a patio and ordered an exceptional Thai curry and a split a huge bottle of beer. We had a very friendly waiter (very pretty, too; he would've made an excellent lady-boy). Bangkok was looking up.
The next morning we headed out to see the Royal Palace. On our way we hit an impossible intersection with about 16 different streets converging onto one roundabout. We pulled out the guidebook to check the map and just then this wonderful man, a Thai teacher, came to our aid. He explained that the Royal Palace was closed until the afternoon because the King's sister had died and this was the final day in a
100 day mourning period. The Royal Family was using the Palace and therefore it was not open to the public. He suggested this great boat ride to the floating market and even hailed a tuk-tuk and negotiated a dirt cheap price for us to get there. The boat tour was a private boat and we toured around the canals for about an hour. Very beautiful and very fun on a hot day. Strange, though, that the floating market was closed.
The boat driver dropped us off to a dock near to the Royal Palace just in time for the afternoon opening. On our way we met another lovely Thai man, who spoke perfect English. He told us that the Palace was still not open but would be at 2:00 pm. He marked down on our map some other great sites and put us into a tuk-tuk for a very reasonable price. We arrived at this Temple with a gold reclinging Buddha. When we entered the courtyard, yet another king english-speaking man came up and told us that the Temple was closed for lunch so he suggested a few more sites.
Are you catching on yet? It took us
about another 5 minutes, after we walked around the corner and saw that the Temple was open, to figure it all out. We had been taken for a ride by all the helpful English-speaking Thai men - and it turned out to be a very long ride to another temple, a silk factory, a gem and jewellery factory, and a travel agency. We've since figured out that it's the oldest trick in Bangkok. Well, we didn't buy any clothes or jewellery or cheap tours, which is the point of the scam, but we did have quite a good laugh at ourselves and had a lot of fun. We finally arrived at the Royal Palace and, wouldn't ya know it, it had been open all day!
It was worth the trip. The Palace was spectacular. Too much to take in really. Neither of us had ever visited such a grand and elaborate place before. We took way too many pictures, but every time you turned your head, there was another breathtaking sight.
We headed back to our little backpacker area for dinner. A little Indian girl was selling gum on the street while we sat at our patio table.
She came over and we told her that we didn't want any, but she convinced Chris to wager a pack of gum on a thumb war. Chris is a skilled and experienced thumb warrior so he knew he could take down this 8 year old girl with no problem. The fight lasted all of 15 seconds and Chris went down in flames. Although this little bet cost Chris only 50 cents it really solidified the general feeling we get in Bangkok, which is that the locals (at least in the tourist district) will do anything to take your money - even the kids.
Bangkok is not really our thing. The backpacker area, where we are staying, is a complete gong show. Too many tourists, too many aggressive tuk-tuk drivers, too much garbage on the streets (due to the complete absence of garbage cans), too many lady-boys, too many old men with young thai ... ahem, women. Anything goes here and most people seem to be partying and loving it all. We, on the other hand, are leaving tomorrow and heading by bus to the far less developed Southern part of Laos.
It may be awhile before we write
again since we hear that internet less accessible.
Wish us luck. We'll write from Cambodia, where we're heading to after Laos.
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Matt Bernstein
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Thumb War
I always knew that Chris liked playing hand games with 8 year olds!