What's the capital of Thailand? --Part II

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For day two of our Bangkok excursion, we headed to the Chatuchak weekend market. This is not your ordinary outdoor market... it spans several blocks, and our travel book recommends you take six hours to tour it! According to Wikipedia, it's THE largest market in the world, with 35 acres and 15,000 stalls. We were on the accelerated program, and decided to take the two hour tour.

If you couldn't find what you wanted to buy at Chatuchak, you probably didn't look hard enough. In no particular order, some of the highlights include: the exotic animals section (the kind you don't eat), the retro sneaker stalls (who knew Thailand had so many pairs of vintage Jordans), the flora section, and the furniture section (see photo).

After Chatachuk, we went back down into the city to go temple hopping. Now, before getting into detail about the temples themselves, we experienced first hand one of the many Bangkok scams. We knew about this in advance, so we were well equipped. Basically, there will be people staged in front of the temple doors with official looking shirts, and they will tell you that the temple is closed. They will then inform you that you should go visit some other attraction (usually a shop front) for the time being, and this is how the make money. Since we knew this in advance, we were ready for them. All in all, they're actually quite harmless.

We hit the biggest and most impressive temple- the Grand Palace - and were awed by both the scale of the temple buildings and the detail of the mosaic coverings. We spent a good hour there taking photos and enjoying the serenity of the temple. We then went to Wat Pho, the temple of the reclining Buddha. Pretty amazing sight.

We then grabbed a water taxi back to our area of town (Silom Road), and attempted to make an impromptu visit to the famous Oriental Hotel. They must have smelled us coming, because they wouldn't even let us in the door.

Day two in Bangkok was great, but we were ready for some relaxation when we left the next day. On to Krabi!

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