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Published: January 6th 2007
Ash does a great impression...
She should go into business...Farang is Tourist in Thai.
Well, I had a whole blog written out here and I spent another 100b on an hour of time and what happens??? It disconnects. Not impressed, not impressed...
Nonetheless... I'm back at it. A bit pissed off... quite cranky... but still loving every single second of my life right now. You wish you were me.
So... lets get started with our day...
After I wrote last, Ash and I scampered back to the room to quickly pack our things so that we could get a jump start on our day...
(I JUST found out that all day we've been thinking that it was an hour ahead of what it actually is... I don't know why, I don't know how, and I don't know if we've been doing this since we got here... Either way, I've been telling people we're 14 hours ahead of Vancouver... Nope. 15 FYI)
I packed too much... Advice to the new traveller: DON"T PACK ANYTHING! plain and simple. Come here with the clothes on ur back (and be ready to throw them out) and a wallet (be ready to throw that out too). I was told
by EVERYBODY that you can get EVERYTHING over here... and it's true. Ashley bought a new pack yesterday for about $75 CAD. 2500B. And it's nicer than mine. I spent $160. Seriously. Get it all over here. I know it's hard to fathom not packing anything. But it's doable. Very Very doable.
We came back downstairs with our very very heavy packs and we headed out for our day. We had the whole Bangkok sightseeing thing on our brains. We took the free tuk tuk to Khao san again and we walked to other end. We found a TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) office and asked for a map. Grand Palace, 10 minute walk that way. OK! So here we go...
So, those of you who have been here, know what i'm talkin bout when I say traffic here is... well... horrendous. Seriously. It's absolutely hectic. There's basically no rules. If you are a tuk tuk or a motorcycle... you just drive anywhere you can as long as you can drive. If there's a bit of space on the road, you can cut up infront. All the bikes do all the time. It's chaos. Absolute complete chaos. So
Giddy Up!
Anybody wanna ride? we get to this ... intersection (? for lack of a better word) and now we have to cross this 5 lane highway... and there's no light... it's divided and it's soooo weird. We waited 5 minutes till FINALLY we crossed. Then we had to cross the OTHER 5 lanes that were heading in the OTHER direction. Needless to say, it was very stressful. Finally we reach the other side (alive thankfully) and there's this big Park looking thing... so we're walkin... we're walkin... La dee da... This is nice. Look over there, look over here. Theres a little hop and a jump to our step. We are in Thailand after all!! Then we come up and we see all these pigeons... Now... I'm completely unaware of Ashleys' huge fear of birds... pigeons being some of the worst kind... and theres this lady feeding them. there's pigeons ALL around her... Reminds me of Home Alone and the Pigeon lady... So she comes up and she puts some corn in both our hands in little plastic bags. Ashley is sweating. She's got tears in her eyes. Shes about to pass out, I'm sure of it. She hands me back these bags
of corn and RUNS away. Litterally runs away. I'm in the middle of lighting a smoke, and i've got people putting bags of corn in my hand, and then she dumps them out, and I'm like, WOW! Lookit all the birds! How fun! HAHAHA.
Dumb Daph... Uh... DUH! Nothings FREE over here. Stupid tourist scam... AGAIN! I start to walk away and she YELLS at me, 150BAHT!! Oh ok. Ok. here's 100... NO 150!!! and she's on me, and the other guy is on me and out of NOWHERE there's a 3rd lady and theres' birds on my feet and now i'm getting a bit stressed out and feeling pressured... of course... stupid polite canadians! So I handed over another 500Baht ($5CADish). Brutal Daph. I know. lol.
So Ash and I continue walking. Ash is STRESSED to the max here... like, litterally sweating BUCKETS! She couldn't have gotten away from that place fast enough. So we continue walking and Ashley is really anxious. She's not having a good time. She's feeling dirty. Lost. Hot. So she needs a smoke and a sit down in the heat. So we find a quiet little bench across the street from the
Don't know what to call this...
Where we almost died crossing the road palace and have a smoke. Not long after, a very nice Thai man sits beside us and asks us where we're from. This is a fave question of Thai peeps. Where you from? Where you live? And we start up a conversation. Very nice man. And me being the CHYARMER that I am, I keep it up with him. Hard to understand every word he says, but still catch most of it. Most people speak English here. It's not hard to find someone to help you if you need help... So somehow we get on the subject of seeing things today and he says, show me your map, i show you where you go. So we pull it out and he tells us all these places. Here, I call tuk tuk for you. You pay 10b each and he show you these places... there was like, 5 places that we wanted to see today. So we say, ok. Fine. He had told us it was a holiday today and the palace wasn't open till the afternoon anyways. So we go see the other side of bangkok first, then come back. Ok we say.
So off we go in the
Tuk Tuk. Takes us to the Black Buddha, or Lucky Buddha as they call it. As we were there, a Thai man comes up and starts talking with us... and he tells us a little of the history of this buddha. Apparently 12 years ago this monk died and he's mummified in the temple across the way and hasn't decomposed at all and has no chemicals in his body. So that's why he's the Lucky Buddha.
So we hop back in the tuk tuk (cause they wait for you while you go into these places) and he takes us to a silk clothing shop. Now, I've been reading these blogs for the past... 4 months and I've heard it all before. This is what they do. but it's just so much different when you get here and actually come across it. It doesn't help that you don't really understand every word the dude says... So they tell you cheap price to take you to all these places, and it's cheap because along the way, they take you to these shops that will give him free petrol vouchers if he brings in stupid unsuspecting Farang... Anyways... we didn't want any
silk, so we walked right back out. "Oh, you berry beautiful. You need silk suit." uh, no.
Back in the Tuk Tuk and off to the Marble Temple. So we get there, pay our 20b entrance fee and go look around at all the different buddhas. There's different poses for different meanings and they're all of different asian descents. It was fairly neat. Ash liked it a lot.
So we hopped BACK in the tuk tuk and by now we're weary and cranky and we're dirty and smelly and we just wanna go back to Khao san for a beer (yes, by the end of the day even I wanted a beer!!). So he has to take us to another jewelery shop. Ash buys a necklace that she absolutely LOVES and spent 1000B on it. It probably wasn't worth that... actually... it DEFINATELY wasn't worth that (1000b = $33CAD) but anyways. She bought it.
So then we say, Khao san. He says, TAT office. So he takes us there, and we liked the guy, so it wasn't a big deal. We walked in. Said we have the next 2 weeks all booked, and then walked out. Then
we came back to Khao San. Thank god. We were SOOOOOOO tired and cranky and dirty. I ddin't feel the dirt much yesterday, probably cause we weren't out for that long, but today, I just feel DIRTY... probably doesn't help that we've been up since some ungodly hour and hadn't eaten since breakfast.
So off to our new fave little spot on Khao san where we sipped some Heinies and had a Ham sandwich and salad. We still haven't tried anything local... we're about to get on a long bus trip so we don't really wanna have bad tummies for that... if you catch my drift... wink wink nudge nudge...
So... off to Koh tao for our padi certifications tonight... We're stoked and can't wait. We're gonna destress and lax on the beach for a day first... pedis, manis and massages all day long... Seriously... our feet are SOOO dirty... If i were an indian... I'd be called Chief Chyarming Black Foot... That's right... i chiefed myself...
Ash is cranky and needs some food so I better upload some pics and be on our way... we catch the bus in an hour...
Me Ruv Me Ruv...
Keep the comments coming. You have no idea how much we love and appreciate them... And I know you all got our number... send us a text or something... including your name cause some numbers we don't recognize!!
Dedria... Come here NOW!
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Emmou
non-member comment
jealous much!
Yay for you guys! you look like you're having so much fun. And see daph you won't have to rely souly on deep fried ice cream! they have ham sandwiches! and who knew you liked beer...wow all these new experiences. and if i were there (which i wish i was) i would have been running with ashley away from the pigeons! keep having and probably stay away from the dark alleys. And i hope you kept my letter...remember the travel tips..tip number one don't give money to strange people just because they ask! loving reading about your trip. have lots more fun!