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Published: June 25th 2006
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Temple
The temple where they made the holy water from outside Had a bit of a lay in the next day. Headed into Bangkok's Hua Lamphong district (main train station). We mainly wanted to see what the part of Bangkok with all of the touristy things was like. We got off the metro and were in a rubbish bit of town. We thought we could walk to the area we wanted to, but were stopped after about five minutes by a local guy. He again drew all over our map telling us where to go and his personal recommendations. He talked to us for way longer than necessary and we had to nearly grab our map and run off to get away! Also halfway through talking to him a beggar woman approached us and was touching and grabbing Bex's arm and praying for money. After a dirty look and a thankyou to the guy we headed off again faster this time, but were followed by a Tuk-Tuk driver down the rest of the street. He kept offering us a ride and when we said no, drove past us and got out again and asked us again. In all he tried about four times. Upon reaching the end of the street (only about
Temple
The temple where they made the holy water one hundred metres) another Thai guy stopped us and talked to us saying he was an art teacher and the favourite Thai line: Where are you from? 'England'. Oh the football yeah, Wayne Rooney hahahaha, David Beckham! He again told us where to go and hailed down another Tuk-Tuk for us. We were annoyed at being in this bit of town and situation so just got on and apparently we'd hired the Tuk-tuk for an hour not just one journey.
This is where things got a little more rubbish. The driver had a different opinion on where we should go everytime we asked to go somewhere. He ended up taking us to about four destinations extra of his choosing. We saw a 'wat' or temple, that we wanted to go to, that was open for one day only and that day because according to the lunar calendar it was the right time to make holy water. So people from many countries had come for the ceremony and we didn't realise as everyone had gone. We found all this from a guy who was in the temple (only small temple, about the size of two rooms) who broke the ice through
Statue
Statue pretty much on the roadside England? Football, Wayne Rooney etc and then asked us everything he could think of about money and prices. Everybody seems obsessed with money and has a pre conception that we are massively rich because we are western, although we may be in comparison, we're just normal Brits and its a bit annoying.
Then our 'helpful' tuk-tuk driver told us about a shop that sold all sorts of things, which we refused originally to go to as we weren't out to shop, but he then insisted and took us saying there was a promotion on its last day. However he took us anyway and all it turned out to be was a small overpriced gem shop in the back alleys off the river. To avoid getting hassled or talked into buying things we told them we were French and hardly talked English. This seemed to work as they left us alone and pretty much ushered us out of the shop! We asked to go to another temple but he took us to a statue in the middle of a massive roundabout that we coujldn't get to because of the traffic. We wanted to go to the metro and go back to
Room Service!
Room service totalling about 5 pounds the hotel because we hadn't had the best of days, and after some drawn out negotiations he said he'd take us there after one more Thai fashion shop. He showed us a card he had written in English, some sob story about if we look in the shop they'll give him 1 litre of petrol and if we buy anything they'll give him 5. We refused about three times but eventually gave in so that he would take us to the metro afterwards. When we got there "Thai fashion" turned out to be another tailor shop and to play along a little we wandered around looking really casually. The man working came over instantly and ushered us upstairs, into his office. We were walking really slowly because we knew where this was heading. He asked us to sit down and Jack refused and then he shouted "Sit down". Jack refused again and started for the door. He asked us what we were doing here and Bex explained that our tuk-tuk driver had taken us there so he could get petrol. He frowned and said that this wasn't a petrol pump and shouted that "YOU MUST BUY SUIT." We were pretty pissed off by this point so shouted back we weren't getting anything and went back outside! Ha, winner Williams. Finally the tuk tuk took us to the metro, the driver annoyed we hadn't got anything and driving more aggressively, through red lights etc.
We arrived back in one piece and went back to the hotel. After such a hassly day we decided not to go back out and we made use of the room service instead!
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dad
non-member comment
An experience to learn from. Be polite but firm, you will get used to it.