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Published: January 14th 2009
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Three hours on a very choppy ferry ride back to mainland (not to mention the 2 hour delay on leaving), an an overnight bus which just so happened to break down two hours into our 10 hour ride, and a very unconfortable replacement bus and we finally arrived to the city to which all roads lead, Bangkok. We found accomodation just off of the famous Koh San Road which is the backpackers mecca of bars, guesthouses, and bargin shopping. Matt was in need of a couple of t-shirts so this was the perfect place to test our bargining skills.
We had some business to take care of in Bangkok in order to organize our Laos visas, however arriving on a Saturday meant we would have to wait until Monday to begin the process. With a few days to spare we had plenty of time to see the popular sites of the city. First stop, the Grand Palace. After renting clothes to make our appearance more acceptable to be in such a place we walked around the grounds but decided to for-go the interior as a 350 Baht entrace fee was required (which was almost double the price our Lonely Planet
Love the hats!
Meeting a friend of Matt's sister from Japan in Bangkok deserves a few drinks guide mentioned, and not in our measly backpackers budget. Taking the free route, we walked around the city! Well, only a small part of it as Bangkok is huge.
There is a huge weekend market in Bangkok so we woke up early and caught a magenta pink metered taxi to take us there. Huge is an understatement to describe this market. With seperate sections selling anything from home furnishings, to plants and gardening supplies, lines of food stalls, and even an area selling all kids of pets! There were chickens, dogs, fish, squirrels, etc all for sale. The home furnishings sections sold decorations and furniture that we would find in Home Sense stores for a fraction of the price. After getting lost in the market for a few hours, we hoped on the sky train monorail into the downtown section and visited the huge Siam Square mall, complete with a floor of luxury cars. Bangkok is infiltrated with canals (sometimes being referred to as the Venice of the east) so we wanted to take the local river taxi back up to our hotel area. A tuk tuk driver approached us and said for 10 Baht (about 30 cents) he
could take us to the pier. Being skeptical of everyone we first declined but he was pursuasive and for 10 cents we figured "what do we have to lose". As soon as we stopped at the first light he showed us a card that said if he brought us to a tailors that he would get 5L of free gas, which is why he could offer us such a cheap price - ahh, the catch! Without any choice really we agreed and were ushed through the tailor shop being shown nice fabrics, scarves, and being offered custom made suits at every turn. Our reply was "no thank you, we are leaving tonight". Their answer, "oh no problem sir, we will have it for you in the hour!" They were relentless but we escaped successfully. Getting back in the tuk tuk our driver brought us right to the pier as he promised. However when we went to ask how much it was for the river boat we realized that we were brought to a "private" pier where they charge an extortionate amount (1500 Baht/$50) for an hour scenic ride up the river. Catch 2! Luckily another couple was walking by and
they said if you walk a block in the other direction it will bring you to the local dock where the boat should cost 40 Baht/1.30. Whew! We walked away from our driver who tried to tell us that he would get us a better price from them for us, but we just said thanks and walked away. We quickly realized that he gets paid by bringing us to certain places and since we didn't buy from his "partners" he didn't make any money either. It's all business in Thailand and foreigners are seen as dollar signs for them and unfortunately not much else these days. Finally on the local boat we enjoyed a beautiful ride up the river and hoped off at the famous Wat Poh (temple), home of the largest reclining golden Buddha. The reclining Buddha is meant to symbolize his final passage into the state of Nirvana and it attracts many tourists and locals alike.
Just outside of Bangkok is another market, although this one symbolizes the more traditional lives of the Thai's in the area as the market is done entirely on the canals. This floating market has become another popular tourist spot, however the
charm was not all lost. Old women sat in small canoe like boats selling fresh produce, or with small propare powered grills heating hot oils for deepfrying bananas or keeping broth warm for noodle soups. We walked along the canal sampling all that was on offer and enjoyed watching this traditional way of life for this area.
Back in the city we waited for our visas to be completed and then boarded yet another night bus to take us further north to the city of Chang Mai. Although night buses are not the most comfortable and sleep comes in short segments, it saves us on a nights accomodation and gets us to our next destination!
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