Around, about and out of Bangkok

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After a noisy and relatively sleepless night in a hostel off the Khao San road we headed out to the Grand Palace. Unfortunately we took a wrong turn and came in from the wrong direction. On the corner a helpful gentleman told us that the site would be closed until 1pm. We became a bit suspicious when he suggested some alternative venues and the prices for a tuk-tuk. He beckoned one over but we’d already made a dash. A man then appeared in front of us and went off on the same spiel, which made it seem more convincing and Sammy thought it might be an interesting diversion until the site opened. Meanwhile I was a bit suspicious that the second man looked a bit like the tuk-tuk driver the first man had summoned in such a timely fashion previously. Sure enough after the first temple (probably the equivalent of a parish church) we found ourselves being taken to various factory outlets (overpriced clothes and jewelry) We pretended to look interested (or at least Sammy did) and allowed him to take us to a few before Sammy put her foot down. The tuk-tuk driver presumably got a commission for delivering us to each outlet even though we never bought anything. He then took-took us to another temple which was actually in the guidebook and which we would not have seen otherwise, the whole roundabout trip costing about 80p. A scam maybe, but the perpetrators (the outlets) made a loss to subsidise our tour, so not all bad.
The driver returned us to where we had started and so we were able to tour the grand temple and visit the Emerald (jade) Buddha. Perhaps the most interesting bits for me were the frescoes lining the outer wall of the complex; a complete story told in pictures stretching for many hundreds of metres in exquisite detail. We then stopped for a drink before visiting Wat Po and the reclining Buddha. Which was big.
We made our way back to the hotel, avoiding more people trying to hassle us or trying to stuff bird food inside our rucksacks, and lurked in the lobby before making our way to the main railway station in a taxi (he was the fourth one we tried - the others didn’t know where it was). Dinner was a fairly rudimentary affair at the station before getting on the train.

The train started off slowly, chugging its way along to stop at every station (or so it seemed) in Bangkok before hitting open country. Around eleven the guard starting turning down the beds - fold-down affairs with curtains to separate them from the corridor running down the centre of the carriage - and everyone seemed to be quite keen to get to sleep - which was pretty easy. I slept soundly until dawn.

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Photos

But apparently not
Sammy fell asleep after a few minutes on the train... fortunately I had a book to read