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Published: August 20th 2005
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I spent a night and day with Dan, from England, who was staying at the Shambara as well.
Dan,
When you get a chance,
send me an email saying if you want any of the other photos that aren't on here.
There's still some other good ones.
Tuk-tuks
I caught my first Tuk-Tuk, and haven't stopped since. I've stopped walking and started to go the easy way. I've got the last of my money to spend, so why not right?
Basic rule of thumb -
- 1. walk if you have the energy, you see and learn more, that you would miss.
- 2. im not the best person to talk about it, but probably a cheap bus is next best.
- 3. in bangkok, take a tuk-tuk if you know where you are going and what it is worth, and take a taxi if you don't know how much it is worth OR are too tired to barter or whatever, when you'll get ripped off completely
Taxis are safe in many ways, and i havent had any trouble with them. But someone else would tell you a bad
The place i gotta check the name of
A dodgy, lower than normal quality, hung over photo..... story or two.
There's a lot of warnings about Tuk-tuk drivers, taking you to where they want to take you, like places that sell all sorts of things - like travel tickets, suits, ladies, whatever - and they get a fuel voucher or a cut. But I haven't had any problem at all like this.
There was one that totally misunderstood and took us the wrong way, but he certainly didn't get anything extra for it. He had to use more petrol, and we just paid what was already agreed.
The night before, we got a tuk-tuk to some kind of market near Chinatown. It wasn't what we wanted - the great Chinatown Night Market, which I didn't find until 2 nights later.
We did find a market with a hell of a lot of flowers, most likely for Buddhist rituals, and, as it turns out, they hang them from their rearvision mirrors to be protected while out driving (understood!!). Plus a lot of fresh and prepared food.
Just chores
For the sake of having company, I went with Dan to do his little chores for the day before we did some
Along the water
Dan, note the old Ford Escort sightseeing. We booked him into his next guesthouse, had 'brunch' there (extremely hung over it was a bit hard to eat but we tried) and also looked for this travel place he'd been taken to and sure he'd get the best deal at. We didn't find it, but did see some canal/ market/ temple life while we were out, which was worth the hard walk anyway. We did go to an internet cafe, and he got some idea of what he wanted to do anyway. So then we could go on and do some sightseeing.
It was the latest I've ever started on this trip. I don't remember but something like 1 o'clock leaving the hostel and 2 o'clock getting into some heavier sightseeing. I'm not complaining.... I felt incredibly dodgy and didn't really recover for about 2 days would you believe...so It was probably good to go a bit easier. As it turns out, I didn't sleep for more than a couple of hours over two nights! So I was pretty off my game for a couple of days there!
And the last 3 days here since then were and are still to be pretty heavy, constant
sightseeing, so the day off in the middle was the way to go. Also, the company was worth it, of course.
I'll check the name of this place
and get back to you
I haven't brought my book to the internet cafe, so I'll have to check what the first place we went to was called, but we found it right near Dan's new guesthouse. It was a lovely little Chinese place - with Chinese rock formations, shi-shi dogs, the whole thing. I'll get back to you once I have the name and find out anything else interesting about it.
Along the water
Looking for the TAT travel place, we came across some temples and interesting places. They ARE everywhere, so if you go for a walk you come across something. Dan had been to at least one the other day, so we were in roughly the right place. We took plenty of wrong turns and never found it, but it didn't really matter. He found the information he needed on the internet anyway.
Dan also saw an old Ford Escort like his family used to have.
It doesn't sound
like much, but its honestly a weird spinout to see that kind of thing overseas.
Like when I saw all the metallic-purple Hyundai Getzs in Singapore....
Wat Po
This is a great place, up there with the best of the Wats (temples). I'll talk more about the wats soon, but for now, this is the great one I went to with Dan that day.
It is next to the Grand Palace, the second closest one as there is a wat on location at the palace. It is really beautiful, with a great deal of Buddha statues along walls, most of them seem to be from the Ayuthaya period, a fantastic time in Thai history of art and architecture. It also has a very impressive Reclining Buddha, in a large central hall, and a lot of lovely chedi and other structures.
There's a lot of shoes on and shoes off kinds of places here, and it reminds me to tell you that there are often places where foreigners have to put their shoes in one area and Thais have to put their shoes in another. It is not as bad as some things, like having
to get in the foreign line to buy train tickets and that kind of thing in China, but still, it reminded me of the separation from the locals you can feel in China.
I don't know what more to say about Wat Po. It is just a really lovely place, that you can't miss if you visit Bangkok, and I'll let the photos speak for themselves from here. So check out the photos of Wat Po, Me, Dan and more of today's wanderings below:
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valerie
non-member comment
wat po
still looks as awesome as when I saw it 20 years ago