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Published: April 3rd 2006
The Big Buddha
This thing was so tall and just down the street.It's Monday morning and we are off to Chiang Mai for a few days. Thailand has been pretty good so far. It's hotter than hell, but what can you do? The first night we stayed in an air conditioned room but the last 2 have been with just a fan. All I can say is, I'm spoiled. The fan helps but damn I could go for some A/C right now.
Yesterday we saw some amazing temples but it was like 100 degrees and we decided to do it at 1pm, so we moved through it pretty quickly. Even though we didn't spend as much time as some folks would have we still got a lot of pictures and were completely amazed at how beautiful and ornate it all was. These wats (temples) that we saw have been the prettiest that we've seen. We can't wait to post the pictures. Our camera doesn't seem to really catch some of the beauty that we've seen (or at least it seems on the viewer). Maybe the picture will turn out better.
We've learned to be wary of people that come up to you when you pull out your guidebook. We were checking
out the map and figuring out where we wanted to go when a very friendly stranger stopped and helped us out. Also told us about a "Buddha Day" at the Thai Market and how Thai boxing was really cheap on that day. He showed us on the map and also asked where else we were going. We let him know we were going to the islands at some point and he pointed out a travel agency. Then he followed up with the market again and said it would only take 10baht for the ride...that's like $.25 so that's easy. Then he walked off. At this point we were thinking it was a scam but he just walked off. We started walking and a tuk tuk came up and asked if we needed a ride. We were wary but it was only 10B and we wanted to ride a tuk tuk so we took it and he took us to where we asked, the "Thai Market." Well it was all a scam and he took us to the travel agency. We weren't going to go in and we were just going to figure out where we were going to go next
but he begged and pleaded. We went in and made a boggus inquiry about a train to Chang Mai and then left. Turns out tuk tuks never cost 10B it's always more than that. We checked our locations with some street names, which are almost always in Thai and continued our little tour of Bangkok. So the moral to the story is don't trust strangers. We also found out why they're called tuk tuks. They take you for a ride.
It was a blessing in disguise though. We got to see parts of Bangkok that we weren't planning on seeing, we got to ride in a tuk tuk, we weren't that far from the hostel and we did get to see a massive night market (it wasn't where the guy showed us). There was nothing on that road. We checked it out to see if that was a lie too. Other scams: taxis not using the meter and bargaining with you on the price for a ride, people telling you museums and temples are closed for the day and have another attraction for you, tuk tuks telling you they have to stop for gas when they're taking you to
your location, people in the park selling bird seed will plop it in your pocket and then demand payment and the list goes on. We read about these and all of them but the bird seed was tried on us. Don't worry, we didn't fall for them.
So, off to Chang Mai. We've got to go and catch the plane. We'll blog again soon.
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lil bro
non-member comment
thailand
i guess bogus and beauty equal out!