Hitting The Bangkok Tourist Circuit

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Despite the lack of sleep we had the energy to do the tourist bit and visit the Grand Palace. To get to there, we took a ride in a glorified three-wheeled lawn mower called a tuk tuk. The combination of this being seriously overloaded and the psychotic tendencies of the driver meant that it was a hairy ride. Two of us had to hang out of each side of it and then grit our teeth as the driver swerved between traffic on both sides of the road. We learnt the hard way that you agree the cost of the journey before you travel as it saves a lot of arguing.

That was only our first mistake of the day. The second was to try and get into the Grand Palace in shorts and tee shirts. A strict no-no and the guards (who had machine guns of course) refused to let us in. Right on cue and in the true Thai entrepreneurial fashion a guy came along offering to rent us long trousers and shirts. Before he would hand them over however, he wanted one of our watches as a deposit, and preferably one that would be worth copying. My Casio digital was not an option so Alan's was to be the blue print for the next batch of watches to hit the shops.

The Grand Palace was huge and it took the best part of the day to get round it. Made the Royal Pavilion in Brighton look like a run-down shack.

That night we caught a bus to the islands and beaches of the south. You can spot the people who have just arrived in Thailand due to the pasty white colour of their skins. We would need to spend some time on our tans before we could hold our heads high in Bangkok.

Once on our way, we settled down to yet another sleepless night on what turned out to be the bus ride from hell. The floor was more comfortable than the seat and was probably cleaner. There were different classes of bus in Thailand and we were on the economy class. Boy did it justify its name!

Bangkok was the hub of our travels around Thailand and consequently we came back here again later (see Except for The Shopping, Snooker and Crocodiles).

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Photos

The Grand Palace
The five of us dressed-up and ready to enter

Inside The Grand Palace
One of the ornate buildings inside the Grand Palace

Grand Palace Gold
Some of the detail of the palace

More of The Grand Palace
One of the buildings and us

Grand Palace Guard
One of the huge guards in the palace