Advertisement
Published: April 27th 2008
Edit Blog Post
BANGKOK, 23 -25 MAY 2005
Bangkok, The Budha’s City!
So, where to start? Okay… I almost miss my flight to Jkt since I thought my flight is at 2.30 pm while it’s actually at 1.50 pm (but got lucky as usual). It’s boring having to fly to Jkt just because I can’t find direct flight from Bali to Bangkok. Well, Jkt is hot, dusty and polluted… so I felt really nervous although I was just on transit.
Then flying to Bangkok from Jkt took about 3.5 hours… really boring too! The weather was not so good, a few turbulences… but I couldn’t be bothered! I couldn ’t sleep... and I was too lazy to read. So I started staring at the cloud wishing that I can see Angels flying!
Around 7.50 arriving in Bangkok… it was a long walk at this big airport, plus extra time waiting for the luggages. I jumped to an airport express bus that costed me 150 bhat, but again I had to wait extra for about 1 hour until the bus showed up! Everything is so slow here in Bangkok I guess. Me bringing my 55liter rucksack that made everybody
look at me and feel sorry that a little girl like me has to carry this heavy creature. I almost forget what I put inside it, it’s HEAVYYYYY! For sure I have to redo my rucksack in Nepal later before heading for Annapurna Circuit, otherwise I have no choice than having to hire a porter. I was not the only one with the same type of 55 liter rucksack. Most of the tourists in the same bus bringing that too, but I have no clue whether they will also do Annapurna Trip like me or not. I’m not really a rucksack type of traveler. I bought this rucksack specially for this Annapurna Circuit trip only. Problem is, I don’t even know whether I’m capable to lift it or not. Hiiks hiikkss…
It was rainy when I get off from the bus at Democracy Monument. It seems I was the only passenger who not gonna stay in Khaosan Road area. Well, I booked my hotel online just because I like the room in the website. And I guessed it’s the closest location to Grand Palace and a few places of interest in walking distance. I ended up walking trying to
find where the hotel is in the dark without any senses of direction. I don’t even know whether the city is safe or not. But I made it to Boonsiri Place. A small hotel, but the interior is artistic and clean… medium rate (around 45 USD/night). I almost change my mind to find other better hotel by looking at this hotel in the dark from the street, but when I saw the room, I felt okay…
Thursday, April 24, 2008.
I’ve never planned to see lots of things in Bangkok, but I ended up having a date with Budhas everywhere. I don’t know why, but today it’s all about observing Budhas in many different temples… you can say… from Standing Budha to Sleeping Budha, from Handsome Budha to Old Budha… from Lucky Budha to,,,,, you name it! Today happened to be a big festive Budhist Day, so everybody is going to the temples to pray. I felt blessed and lucky, since I didn’t even plan this! So while taking some pictures, I can also see the locals praying. I’ve never seen so many Budhas in my life in one day… but somehow, I started liking it
and pretended a little bit to be a local people. I had a lot of fun walking on the street… I don’t even feel that I’m a tourist here, well my face is a little bit Thai look alike, so welcome home!
If you only have 1 full day of sightseeing in Bangkok, I will recommend you to go to maximum 5 temples in a day, namely… Grand Palace, Sleeping Budha, and Wat Arun (the temple of the dawn). This first 3 temples is closed by, and do it in order as I wrote. I will recommend you to do this after 2 in the afternoon. And Wat arun is the last one. In the morning you can visit the standing Budha and Lucky Budha (in the same direction). Going to see the standing Budha and Lucky Budha, hire a tuk tuk… the rate is around 100 baht I guess. You can negotiate the rate.
Be careful with someone on the street that approaching you nicely. Usually they are very kind, speak a good English, and offering you assistance on the direction plus special rate 'tuktuk' sightseeing to many temples. Then after they will ask you to go
to the so called 'export center' that is said to have last discount of the year. Do not believe in that, when they said export center, it's actually jewelry shop and they want you to buy something from that place. Do not fall for that offer. You can just hire a tuktuk directly whereever you want, not via this person.
Well, enjoy the pictures of Budha's City!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.058s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0354s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
JanV
Jean
What happened next?
Did you get to Nepal all right?