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Bangkok for the final time
We arrived in Bangkok for the third time but this time flying on Air Asia from Phuket-the plane was much more stable than our propeller plane from Samui and we spent the day chilling out. The flight was pretty short and we easily swept away the conmen at the airport. One special lad got especially upset as he failed in his attempts to lure us into his taxi. Chris was being playful and insisted he likes taking buses displayed his bus ticket to the taxi man. Incensed by this, he counted his money and started fanning his cash at us ‘I got money’ he sang. Good for you my friend. He soon got bored and left.
Birthday time!
The following day, my birthday (Tszwai), we decided to awake at the crack of dawn to complete an intense sightseeing itinerary around the older part of Bangkok. This was far from the lie in, breakfast-in-bed type of treatment that I had hoped for but nevertheless, the day panned out very well! Our first stop was the Grand Palace which also houses a famous temple containing an emerald Buddha. I luckily escaped from having to wear
a wrap-around skirt around the temple and palace as I had come prepared for the occasion and had packed an appropriate t-shirt, and I could roll my trousers down to cover my offending legs (they are getting real hairy). The temple is pretty much the same as the ones we saw in Chiang Mai but on a larger scale. When I reached the emerald Buddha, I had to find it amongst the gold they place around the small figure and I wasn’t allowed to take a picture 😞 We saw a large amount of Chinese statues and when we consulted our guide book, we learnt that they were presents in exchange for rice from the friendlies in China. I loved the cute little statutes-they were my favourite ha! The palace was huge and by the time we actually reached it, we were too tired and exhausted from the heat that we raced through it all and continued on our journey to the Wat Pho-home of the reclining Buddha. The Reclining Buddha is worthy of its fame - the huge walls of the building barely contained it. We managed to take some pretty cool pictures of the sleeping Buddha by pushing
and shoving! After the excitement had passed, our stomachs rumbled and we hunted for luncheon.
Post lunch - we went to the ferry pier and wanted to catch a ferry to the Temple of Dawn (Wat Arun) but due to sheer laziness, we just decided to take a few pictures from our side of the river and let it be-we may return at night to take more pictures when it is shining in light :P Our next move took us on a dangerous mission to jump onto an express river boat whilst the pier (concrete slab floating in the river) was wobbling dangerously and the boat rebounding off the rubber tyres protecting the pier. We were silly enough to admit that we hadn’t paid our fare, when a fellow foreign traveler managed to hitch a ride on the same ferry.
We weren’t going to see the mansion that King Rama the 5th had lived in, but at the last minute, we changed our minds and caught the ferry to the nearest pier. The mansion was impressive but pictures were only allowed to be taken outside of the building. Our free rider ferry friend seemed to be following us for
directions as we saw him shadowing our footprints to the mansion…..cheek! use a map next time! As we entered the mansion, we followed an English speaking guided tour as we had little idea who this king was! A sudden whiff took us by surprise and would you believe it…….it was our ferry friend again. Criky did he smell or what?!
The main highlight of the tour was that whilst walking down some slippery stairs, a French dude slipped and hit his head on the corner of an open window and hence resulted in a cut on his head. The entire tour had to stop on his behalf and ensure that the palace window was still intact before treating the injured passenger as we didn’t want any blood dripping onto Rama’s teak wood floor! He seemed ok, just a bit dazed and we hope he is recovering well. As bad as it sounds, that we were glad we decided to take on the mansion, otherwise we would not have witnessed such drama!
Our next move lead us on search for fresh fruit again-Chris can’t get enough. We bought a whole durian which we ate most of that night and
some mangosteens as they are supposed to heal the ‘heat’ of the durian! Our adventures did not stop there-we inspected some other durians that were prepackaged, and as one does, we poked a few to see how ripe they were. By doing this, we upset the old granny that was selling them and were angrily swotted away from the durian and had something shouted at us! Sorry durian granny!
Our day ended with a lovely dinner and a great rain shower! Rain just pours down from nowhere and floods the streets-people readily hide and the roads seem to magically clear. We were grateful for our shower before bed as the day had turned out to be pretty hot and sunny, when we had been expecting rain-we were so dirty!!!! And so that concludes my 22nd birthday A year older, but probably not any wiser haha!
Laptop injuries
The day after my birthday started off eventfully when Chris thought his new laptop had broken as he couldn’t log onto it with using the new password he had placed on it. We trekked all the way to the plaza where it was bought and went back to the
shop to ask for aid in curing our little electronic device. However, we ended up being laughed at as the only problem was that the language of the computer was in thai and hence some keys would not work (language had to be changed to English for full use of the keyboard)-so only a tiny problem and not a catastrophe! The rest of the day was spent at JJ market, full of all sorts, but we were there primarily for food consumption purposes. As if we hadn’t eaten enough we rewarded ourselves with a sushi and shabu shabu buffet - I have eaten too much and belly is not happy with me at all. I can’t move properly:S
As I am writing this, Chris is watching the FA Cup final and Chelsea have just won so he is a very happy fella. We have also located our stalker traveler that we saw yesterday on the ferry and at the mansion! He is staying in the same hotel as we are and is watching the game with us!!! :S Stalker or not??? More news tomorrow!
Much love
Tsz Wai and Chris
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sleeping buddha
Have u got more photos of the sleeping buddha. Hope u have some more at a different and a better angle. Lovely pictures.