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Published: November 23rd 2005
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Th. Khao San
In daylight. Can you see it now? Lindsay - After the adventures and stresses we had endured, we took a lot of comfort in our nice, quiet hotel room. We got up, and decided to have a swim in the rooftop pool just because we could. After about an hour of splashing and sunbathing we took to the street for something nice to eat, and decided to make our way to the Royal Palace for the afternoon.
Unfortunately Russell's navigation again didn't get us entirely sucessfully there - although we did find our way to the National Museum where we squinted at our almost useless guidebook map and tried to work out how the hell we had got lost again. Eventually our cluelessness gained the attention of one of the museum officials, who came over and helpfully pointed out where we were. And then proceeded to mark on our map various interesting things that we should go and see while we were in Bangkok, including the temples that he visits. Finally he asked us where we were going. "To the Royal Palace" we chorus. The guy laughs at us - "No the palace closed in half an hour - you pay 200 baht to get in! You
Standing Buddha
Very famous. Now we've seen it. go tomorrow morning, you go to these places by tuk-tuk" pointing to his favourite temples he had just drawn on our map. Damn us for not checking the opening times - it is printed quite clearly in the guidebook. He added their names in both English and Thai, and pointed out a good tailor. He even gave us some Thai lessons so that we could tell the tuk-tuk driver that 40 baht was too expensive we pay 30 Baht. He went on to explain that not all tuk-tuks are alike, yellow are private and therefore expensive, white are government and therefore cheaper. To demonstarte he took us over to a white tuk-tuk and explained to the man where we wanted to go - oh hang on did we want to go to these places? Well I suppose we do now. The tuk-tuk driver told us to go to all these places would cost 40 Baht "Oh" said our self appointed guide "you remember Thai for too expensive" "Pang Bai" I said and the tuk-tuk driver looked at the guide clearly not impressed with his language lessons. Still he agreed to 30 Baht and we were off waving to our new
Buddha Russ
Standing Russell. Buddha's feet. Russell's feet. Thai friend.
The first stop on our tour was the famous Standing Buddha - so famous it is not even mentioned in the Lonely Planey guide. Though every single person we have spoken to since has asked us if we have seen the standing Buddha. It's a big, gold standing Buddha figure. It fulfills it's description in an exemplary fashion (I've been drinking tonight - can you tell?). It was good.
The next stop was a temple, with a reclining Buddha and lots of other Buddhas. Buddhist temples to tend to jam as many statues of the Buddha in as possible - have you noticed? There is normally one especially revered image, then about a hundred more vying for attention. Outside the temple we unintentionally interrupted a man mid-prayer to a (minor) Buddha image. He seemed a bit embarrassed, like a lapsed Catholtic caught outside confession, so started to explain why he was there, and what he was doing. He encouraged us to touch the Buddha for luck, though as embarressed agnostics ourselves we declined. He then took us on a little tour of the inner temple - directing us to take our shoes off at the door (one look at Russell's feet and he insisted "socks are OK, socks are OK!!. Russell didn't pay any attention.") He pointed out all the little Buddhas and gave us valuable information ("see this Buddha? Is very old! See this Buddha? Very old!). And then we sat on the carpet and gossiped for a while about his business (importing and exporting computers) where we come from, the recent downturn in the fortunes of Leeds Utd and the reasons behind them (not mentioning any names) and so on. He was also extremely interested in whatever had brought a couple of green westerners so far off the tourist trail. We recounted our conversation outside the museum and showed him our guidebook of places. He showed approval at all our choices, saying that our final stop would put us in such a place as to see the evening's firework display to celebrate the ongoing Water Festival (slightly different dates in Thailand - we are just going to chase it across Asia). he was also extremely excited to see the next stop - the tailor - on our itinerary. "I was there! Just two days ago!) It transpires that this tailor is a factory which is currently having a sale on. He went two days ago with his wife, who apparantly had a go at cleaning him out and ordered five suits. He agreed as long as he could have five as well. He was so proud he even was carrying around with him a selection of swatches of his chosen material, which we had to stroke and appear interested in. Anyway he looked at his watch and appeared a bit concerned that we had sat around gabbing for so long, as the factory would be closing soon. I committed a bit of a faux pas by asking is it was permitted to take photos of the temple. "No no" he replied "it's not me - it's the monks, they don't like it!" We tried to scurry out, not catching the attention of any monks.
Russell - So next stop the suit factory. We were immediately pounced on by a sales assistant who insisted he follow us around and show us every fabric he had. It was all the finest cashmere in just about any colour and pattern you could imagine. Then the hard bargaining started. Did I want one suit or two suits, shirts, ties the works. The catalogues of styles came out, for me Armarni and Hilfilger, and for Lins - the Next Directory. I've never had a hand made suit before so I was pretty interested, but the costs were a bit above our backpacking budget. In the end I reasoned that it would be OK to spend this much on my wedding suit as only the best will do. In the end we managed to bargain away, getting Lins a work suit as well for very little more than my suit was going to cost. Then the measuring, which was fine for me though I was worrying whether they would ask which way I swung, a piece of information they managed without. Unfortunately they did feel it necessary to measure the distance between Lins' nipples, at least which he had the good grace to look embarassed about. With all the measurements done we were asked to come back the next day for final fittings and we were back on the road.
The poor tuk tuk driver was still waiting outside looking quite miserable so we asked him to take us home and gave him a big tip when we arrived - 10 baht which made the cost up to 40 baht - hmmm maybe our Thai lessons weren't that good after all. It was also pounding down with rain, so we ran quickly to the hotel assuming that the fireworks were cancelled.
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dan
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Sorry to hear its so warm over there must be hell. Very lucky here 7 degrees by day -6 degrees by night , 4 inches of snow now turning to sludge and gas starting to freeze. Are buddas as podgy as they look?