Advertisement
Published: April 11th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Lamphu Tree House
The path to get to the hotel We had a 6:30 am wakeup call for our flight over to Bangkok, but it wasn't that bad as we got to watch a bit of the Superbowl while we were getting ready. The flight was fine, clearing customs was a breeze and we were soon in a taxi to head into town as the new Suvarnabhumi airport (try pronouncing it, its actually pronounced su-wan-na-poom) is about 30km east of Bangkok. I had picked another tricky hotel to find called the Lamphu Tree House. The hotel gets great reviews, but you can't actually drive straight to it, the taxi has to stop at a bridge over a canal, and then you have to walk a couple minutes to get there. Even though we had directions in Thai for our driver, it still took him a few different passes to figure out where to let us off. But once we got there, it was a neat location right on one of Bangkok Khlong's (canals), the room was nice, and it only cost $50US, which is pretty good for Bangkok.
Although the hotel is a little out of the way, it was only about a 10 minute walk to Khao San Road,
which is Bangkok's backpacker central. Its where you find all the cheap guesthouses, knock-off clothing, and good cheap restaurants. So we headed over there for lunch, then walked another 15 minutes or so to get to the pier to cross over to Wat Arun.
For a couple of Thai baht (1 dollar CDN worth about 30 baht) you take a ferry that transfers you across the Chao Phraya river. The temple itself is most well known for the Khmer style central tower (or prang), rather than the Thai style of other temples. You can also climb up some pretty steep staircases to get a good view back across the river of Bangkok. The Chao Phraya river itself is a site to see as its always bustling with tourists, as well as commercial use. After a quick visit to Wat Arun in mid afternoon, we easily concluded that although we thought it was impossible, Bangkok was way hotter than Cambodia.
We had booked a dinner cruise on the Loy Nava boat, which started further south down the river near the Sheraton hotel. We left ourselves lots of time to catch the expressboat, and we certainly needed it as the
first boat left without us. Turns out the expressboat takes all of about 5 seconds to unload people, and let people on. If you're not right at the boat waiting to get on, you don't. So after the second try, we got on and zipped our way down to the Sheraton. We were still a bit early for the cruise, so we went into the hotel, pretended like we belonged and had a ridiculously expensive beer. After paying 50 cents a beer in Cambodia, I wasn't real happy to be paying $8 Cdn a drink, so we very slowly nursed our drinks, enjoyed the air conditioning and waited for the cruise.
The cruise was rated to be the best in the city, and you'd expect it for about $60 each. We got a huge selection of food, and it was a neat way to get an introduction to the city, but overall not worth the money. We found better Thai food on Khao San Road, for a fraction of the price. After the cruise, they took us back to the hotel.
One thing you quickly notice about Thailand is that you have a 7-11 on just about every corner, so
Wat Phra Kaew
The golden chedi (phra Sri Rattana) and library (Phra Mondop we popped over there to buy some supplies. Turns out the beer is more expensive than Cambodia, but water is cheaper, and the locals snack of chocolate covered wafers are cheap and delicious.
Feb. 9 We began the day by heading off to the Grand Palace. Dating back to 1782, it was the official residence of the Kings of Thailand up until the current King, who now resides elsewhere. The highlight of the complex is Wat Phra Kaew, or the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. It contains a number of different buildings decorated in the traditional Thai style, with the highlight being the temple itself housing the sacred statue. It has quite a legend surrounding it, and serves as a major pilgrimage for the Thai people.
After wandering the complex for a couple hours, we headed over to Wat Pho, just south of the Grand Palace. Again, the buildings in the temple are decorated in the same style, with the highlight being the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand at 46 meters long and 15 meters high.
With a half day of temples in us, and the temperatures reaching over 40 degrees with incredible humidity, we scrapped
our afternoon plans and slowed the pace down again.
After jumping in one cab, he told us he couldn't find our hotel, we grabbed another one and decided to make things simple and head to Khao San Road for lunch and cheap shopping. Melissa thought it was quite entertaining that I actually got hassled more than her. About every 10 feet, I was approached to buy a good, cheap Thai suit.
Needing a break from shopping now, we walked back to the hotel, stopping at our 7-11 on the way, however we couldn't buy booze between 2 and 5 for some reason. So we went back at 5, got a couple drinks and lounged on our rooftop patio. We headed back down to Khao San for supper, where we found the best deal all trip; Spring rolls, 2 plates of pat thai, sweet and sour chicken and two fruit shakes for 250 baht (about $8). And of course since we were at Khao San, we had to do a little more shopping before heading back for our early wake up call.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.128s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0719s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb