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Published: December 6th 2006
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Kings birthday celebrations
Wat Arun looking beautiful from the river Today is the kings birthday and a national holiday in Thailand. I decide to take advantage of the quieter roads and use taxis to get to the places I want to visit that I can’t get to by boat or sky train. It turns out to be a miscalculation, not because of the roads, which are quieter, but because of incompetent taxi drivers. At the sky train station I flag a taxi to take me on a 5 minute journey - according to the concierge & it doesn’t look very far on the map. I start to get worried when I recognise places that I’m sure are in the opposite direction. When I look on the map they are, we’re going completely the wrong way. I point this out to the taxi driver and he does a u-turn, drives back to where we started and then 5 minutes down the road to where I want to be. Then he has the cheek to ask me for 100Baht!!! Which I give to him because I’m laughing too much to argue. I think I’m turning thai!! The next taxi driver is no better. I flag him down to take me back to the
Sathorn
This is where i spent about an hour trying to work out where the river was to get to the boat! pier. Pretty well known you would have thought. Not to my taxi driver. Is he from Thailand or Taiwan?? I’m supposed to be in a taxi to get a boat to cross the river……so why is that the river under the bridge we’re crossing? I can see the hotel so I try to get him to go there, but he does a u-turn and goes back over the river again! Then keeps stopping and asking me if I want to get out. As I don’t know where I am I don’t think that would be a brilliant idea! Eventually though I think I may have a better chance of getting to where I need to be on my own, so I tell him to stop. I kind of know where I am, but I can’t get my bearings and work out which side the river is on. I’m on a street with high rise buildings either side, so I cant see anything, so I just wander up and down the road trying to work it out. I literally cross the same road 8 times, passing the same stall holders, until I recognise the shop selling Christmas decorations from a few
weeks ago. Aha, now I know which way I need to go. Get to the boat and Teng is working. I tell him about my taxi exploits, which I think are quite funny, but he tells me that I have to be careful and if that happens again I have to tell the driver that I’m going to call the police, and he writes the numbers down for me!
In the evening I head off to Sunam Luang, the royal park, where the hub of the celebrations for the kings birthday will be. Why did I decide to do this?????? Every thai in Thailand is here I’m sure. I’m crammed into a heaving throng of a wave of bodies not moving anywhere fast. And it’s boiling and sweaty. And all I can see are the tops of peoples heads. After what seems like an eternity I get to the park and it’s one big party. Walk around for a while and take pictures of the sea of yellow as everyone’s wearing the kings colour yellow shirts (including me), then fight through the throng again to get back to the pier. Good decision as it turns out because there is only
one more boat. Before we get on the boat everyone stops, lights candles and sings the national anthem (I think?). It’s like being at a Westlife concert (not that I’ve ever been to one of course, I’m just surmising!). When the boat sets off fireworks are let off near the Grand Palace. It looks magical from the river with the palace lit up and fireworks going off all around. At times tonight I did think seriously about turning around and missing this as it was a nightmare being in the middle of all those people, but I’m glad I stuck it out as it was a great experience to see all these thai people celebrating their king. They LOVE him!!
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