Oh beloved Tuk-Tuks...


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Asia » Thailand » Central Thailand » Bangkok
July 16th 2008
Published: July 20th 2008
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It was so good waking up with a fresh mind with a plan! Well not so much a plan but to chill out, relax and tosee the sights. If there was one thing we learnt about Europe it was to relax more and still see the same amount. At times in Europe maybe we rushed and thought that we had to do thing after thing but now, because we are in such a beautiful place in the world we can enjoy it and savour the moments.



Saying that, it did take us a while to get sorted and out of the hostel! That air conditioning was too nice to leave! But we left and sure, of course, within 2 minutes of leaving the hostel...a tuk-tuk (anyone that has been in Thailand will know what I mean). ''Oh you want tuk-tuk, where you go? I bring you there, 10 baht 1 hour). After the experience with the taxi driver the night before, we opted for no. The nicer and the option that let us see the city was the sky-tram (although because it's SO cool inside walking out is like hitting the heat in Thailand for the first time). Then getting on the boat up through the city. I think its great travelling up through Bangkok on the boats you see so many different sides. You are so aware of the poverty, the run down and collapsed houses, the tin rooves and then on the other side there are magnificant buildings and 5* hotels. Its such ironic city.

Once we left the boat we were straight into a market, selling everything from croc shoes to dried squid. (the smells I will NEVER forget). Still the demanding side of the Thai people, trying to stop you at every chance they get.) But what was at the other side of the market was beautiful. As you got to the end you came to a main road, white walls surrounding the Grand Palace of Bangkok. Again, I thought this was ironic as the Grand Palace is such a magnificant place with an astounding amount of artwork, yet the outside is so bland. To our discomfort, we had missed the opening by about half an hour. And covering the outside were''business men'' who said that as it was closed as we had missed the Palace that they could bring us to different places. YEAH RIGHT! luckily as we had read in the tour guides this happened all the time and they were not in fact business men but con artists who made their money from tourists who were unaware.

With the help of our trusty map we walked down the street and came across ''Wat Po''. Oh my! The size of this gold woman, as a mark of respect we took our shoes off and I, with my shoulders bare, was given a shawl to wear. We continued into see the artwork. It was breath taking the size, when I had seen pictures I thought that it was an impressive size, but the size of her feet alone! One thing I wasn't expecting though was that she would be indoors with so many pillars in front of her. That however was just my own un-cultured views of what Wat Po was goind to be like. (I expected to walk down a street and see her in the middle of the road, outside!) it has been so well preserved.



That night we discovered (after chatting to 2 English fellas) that our hostel has a theatre room. Lovely air-conditioned room ( ·I never realised how important air conditioning was!) with bean-bags and surround sound! So we ended up having quiet evening, watching scar face and realising that jet-lag took longer than one-sleep to get over!

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