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Published: November 22nd 2015
The language barrier can cause such great comedy moments when using public transport abroad. And so, Glyn, Helen, Andy and i certainly proved this when we found ourselves leaving town and possibly on the way to the airport rather than heading to the Grand Palace! Glyn had shown our taxi driver a picture of it in his guidebook, saying Grand Palace and its name in Thai: Wat Phra Kaew.
We'd left soon after breakfast, having waited for Jeff who didn't turn up as promised. Steve and Yiyi were due to leave for a flight to Shanghai and when they left after breakfast, I realised I had missed the chance to say goodbye, so if you're reading this Steve and Yiyi, goodbye, was nice to meet you and I hope you enjoy your time in China! If you have any silly photos of Glyn, please do send them!
As it's the biggest tourist attraction and must see place in Bangkok, you'd hope that the taxi driver knew what we meant But then I have depended on hope to get me to a lot of places and to be honest, hope isn't all that reliable. We started to suspect that things
Grand Palace
Bangkok, Thailandwere going awry after 15 minutes or so, as we'd been told this should be the duration of our journey. The roads seemed to be getting larger, main arteries to take you in, or in our case, out of the city, we started asking questions to a confused driver. When we spotted signs to the airport, we sussed what was happening and Glyn was finally able to get through to him, and at that penny drop moment, we all sighed with relief and the taxi driver did reset the meter. The 15 minute journey ended up taking almost an hour and so we did't beat the crowds as hoped.
The Grand Palace is within Wat Phra Kaew and is the official residence of he Kings of Siam since 1782. The current king, Bhumibol Adulyadej lives at Chitralada Palace but still uses the Grand Palace for official occasions.
Everyone has to wear long trousers or over the knee skirts to get in plus tshirt length sleeves. I found it bizarre that knee length skirts were ok, but three quarter length trousers were not. Glyn's guidebook had said that open toed shoes were not accepted, but this turned out not
to be true, and so we were trussed up in too much clothing and extremely hot.
It was very gold, colourful and ornate on the outside, with a huge gold spire and more mosaics than the best mosaic museum in the world (trust me on this, I've ben to said museum, the self proclaimed best mosaic museum in the world is in Tunisia!).
It was packed solid with tourists, mainly Chinese ones who seemed intent on getting in my photos. The British way of taking photos is to wait patiently whilst others take their turn then expecting them to stand back for you when they're done. This rule only works when everyone applies it, but the Chinese (and some others too) way was just barge in front of you, take photos and then stand there a while, then take photos of each other and then refuse to move when it's your 'turn'. Then if you have the patience for them to eventaully leave, many more will replace them, oblvivious to you or the fact you are stood there with a camera and we start the whole scenario again.
For example, I waited for one lot to do
Grand Palace
Bangkok, Thailand a group shot, camera held ready, when a new tour guide stood next to me then instructed her group in broken English to stand in front of me! I said "Oh thank you" in sarcastic tones, but such British refrain won't get you any good photos. I do wonder if that guide's English was extensive enough to know what I called her! It was so hot, and I was even hotter due to having to wear a sarong and I was already getting tired of the pushing and shoving.
So I decided to be a bit more forceful and behave like those around me, pushing ahead to get my photos, standing in the way of others taking pictures of their friends in front of statues and stuff. I did find a bit of slightly disturbing satisfaction as some of them wailed a little as I stood in the way as they did to me and I got some really good clear photos.
The temple where the Emerald Buddha was housed required us to remove shoes and hats, but all other body parts covered. I'd loved to have been at the meeting where all these rules were made up
as to which body parts and clothing are acceptable to Buddha and which are not, its like there were a lot of people with opposing ideas on the decision making and compromises had to be made.
If you go too close to Buddha, security would keep tapping you with their signs on your shoulders, demanding you sit down. I've no idea how those who got so close ever got away because surely as soon as they stood up, they would be made to see again (toes not allowed to face Buddha), maybe they had to crawl away - it was too packed to see. The Emerald Buddha is a tiny little thing on top of a huge mountain of gold, all that bling outshone the foot high buddha which if you consider if it really is made of emerald (from a distance it looks like jade) would be impressive on its own. No photos were allowed inside, one tourist ignored this rule and a security guy grabbed the camera strap and with the tourist clinging onto his camera, he was led out and clearly in trouble. The ban on photography did not speed up the flow of people and
Grand Palace
Bangkok, Thailand we were all stuck in a very close bottleneck, like cattle at the gate trying to get out as security kept waving signs at us to beware of thieves and pick pockets.
On my way out, three Chinese women on my left wanted to go right. It was too packed to go around me, so they started to shove me in the wrong direction (I needed to reclaim my shoes and find the others) so had had to push back to continue onwards or in that crowd I would have lost my companions. The Chinese didn't like this and one elbowed me in the eye!
But for all the fighting, shoving and heat, it really is an amazing place to visit, I do recommend going but would suggest getting there as soon as it opens and not on a Saturday as it is also full of locals on that day and they do not pander to soft tourists either. Don't bother with the museum part, it is a bit boring and the aircon can be heard but not felt, Andy suspected it was just speakers pumping out the sound of aircon to fool us into thinking it was
real.
During our earlier taxi excursion, despite not being able to communicate with the driver very well about our destination, Glyn did glean from our driver that next week is the King's birthday. So a lot of places are covered in scaffolding to erect new photos of him, lots of painting and tidying up is going on and some areas are shut due to this.
Outside the palace we saw three differently attired guards on horseback posing for a photoshoot, but with painters on bamboo scaffolding painting the wall behind them. Like many people, I took advantage of this and stood next to the photographer wondering why he'd not chosen a background without people at work. Maybe it was intentional and for me it added to the shot.
The four of us walked around the perimeter white wall of the palace, enjoying the intermittent 70's stripper style music being pumped out as a voice over told us to beware of people trying to steal our valuables. The streets were clean and junctions often had great ornamental features in the centre of them, one in particular was of four elephants standing bum-to-bum.
It seemed like such a
Grand Palace
Bangkok, Thailand long walk in that heat and overdressed to get the the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, but in reality it wasn't. This is the largest reclining Buddha in e world and is completely covered in gold leaf. Outside on the street a street vendor sold me a handpainted velvet scene of Thai boats at sunset and threw in a free silk print. Helen also bought some stuff and the guy was chatting to us, asking where we are from. People abroad rarely have heard of Stoke on Trent, so usually we say 'near Manchester' and the guy was "I love Manchester" and we all became best buds, until he said "Manchester City" as in the football club and Andy and Glyn were less than impressed. I won't repeat what Andy said, but he also told Helen not to buy from this man! You had to be there, it was funny at the time.
At the entrance was a guy with a huge snake wrapped around his shoulders and body approaching tourists. Anyone who knows me will be aware that I have issues with even the smallest of snakes, even photos of them fills me with chills, so this was
Grand Palace
Bangkok, Thailand very unpleasant for me and Glyn stood between us as I raced through the archway extremely quickly.
The big gold Buddha was only 100 baht to get in to see and for that price they throw in a free bottle of water. He lives in an temple with pillars with a passage around him , making it impossible to get a full photo. He is 46m long and 15m high. It was another take your shoes off jobby, but this time we were provided with blue bags to carry them in. As I walked in I could hear lots of unidentified clinking noises.
The pillars created dividers for huddles of tourists to take photos of each section. There was far more politeness and etiquette here, so it was possible to get a good photo, but I was extremely glad of my wide angle lens. It was also the first place where bringing a fish eye lens was a great bonus and I can now feel justified at lugging that fifth somewhat novelty lens around three countries.
The first section was at the head end, towering high above us and probably was the most interesting section. I wandered
Grand Palace
Bangkok, Thailand into the other areas, and it was refreshing that there was no shoving despite being busy. At the feet end, I didn't realise that unlike other sections, there was a queue for that area and I got told so rather loudly by a peeved American. Indeed stretching around the corner was quite a long queue for what I suspected wouldn't be a good shot anyway. So I walked off as I heard the American tell his companion that "some people think they are so privileged"! This can be true and also some people didn't spot the queue! I guess he'd already been to the Grand Palace too and was feeling a bit fed up.
Walking along the back of the Buddha was less interesting as you would imagine. Except the line of metal pots that children were dropping lots of small coins in as their parents photographed them. Some adults were doing it too, placing a few coins in every pot down the line. I had now identified the previously unidentified clinking noises.
Upon exiting the Buddha room, i was oh so grateful to remove my sarong, Andy and Helen must have had shorts under their long trousers
Khao San Road
Bangkok, Thailand and were looking a lot cooler. We claimed our free water and left.
It was decided that we would go with Andy and Helen back to Khao San Road, as we only had a few hours left and it was nice to wander and people watch with them. We took another taxi and the driver refused to use the meter, so he quoted a price I knew to be overpriced, but in that heat why quibble of a few quid? The taxi driver was a good laugh at first, his English far better than the previous one. But he soon descended into gender prejudice when he suggested he take Glyn and Andy out next time without me and Helen. The 'hilarious' insinuation was that they would cheat on us, having to pay women to be with and 'entertain' them, knowing their wife/partner is so lacking in self esteem she puts up with the hurt and rejection, but no doubt still does their cooking and cleaning. And it's so funny to the driver that I did not find this misogyny to be amusing, that wives are not equal human beings that a man could respect and treat in the same
way he himself wishes to be treated. So I was doubly pissed off being over-charged and taken on a suspiciously longer route. That man was nasty, I hope he crashes into a wall - only joking! (apparently you can say really vile stuff about deliberately hurting and mistreating people if you're only joking!)
At Khao San Road, we came upon a stall selling weaponry that we'd spotted the previous day. This including knives of varying sizes, ninja stars, an array of knuckle dusters, tazers and other items that looked like they could do a lot of damage.
The road is a lot more relaxed early afternoon than it is in the evening, but there was still a lot to see. We went to the same cafe/bar as yesterday because Glyn and I liked the food, it was cheap and we'd showed no sign of illness! Glyn sat on a metal seat that almost cooked him and the staff moved our table into the shade but we were still close by the street to watch the street sellers, trustafarians, hippy types, back packers and other tourists.
I'd eaten a lot of breakfast so just had a couple of beers, the others ordered food that they liked a lot. We had a quite a few people trying to sell us deep fried spiders as we waited for the food, but no one was tempted. It amazes me that the staff don't mind other people trying to sell food on their premises. One guy was desperate to try and sell Andy a hammock despite him explaining there is no summer in Scotland and he would have no use for such an item. The price started at 700 baht and ended up at 100 baht. I could see that Glyn was tempted, but there's barely any room in our luggage and we have a tiny back yard with barely the space for a washing line, so it would be pointless as I wouldn't agree to putting it up indoors. There were quite a few people trying to sell us all sorts of tat we didn't want but it was entertaining. The guy from whom I'd bought a wooden elephant chopping board come bread basket tried to sell me another.
After the late lunch we wandered to the end of the Khao San Road and turned left along another street of stalls and shops and wandered some distance until we decided we need to cool off. Glyn and I were due to leave for the airport at 5.30pm, so the idea of time in the hotel pool after a hot, sweaty day on foot was very appealing.
The hotel pool was wonderfully cold and we stayed in it even though there was a little rain. We were being amused by a young Chinese girl with a selfie-stick who seemed to be permanently gazing into her phone at the other end of the stick. Whether she was filming, photographing or just admiring, we were not sure, but she used it at every angle of the edge of the pool. This was the most I've relaxed all holiday and it was so nice lying by the pool in the warm late afternoon, knowing it was probably snowing back home, but this is not something I generally enjoy doing!
Andy and Helen were not leaving until early the next morning so still had their room and kindly let us keep our luggage in their and get changed. So we dried off, put on our England clothes and said our farewells, having swapped email addresses. We've had such a good laugh with these pair and their company certainly added to the whole holiday experience.
I was relieved to see that Jeff was in the foyer after his no show in the morning. He did ask if we'd seen Steve and Yiyi in the morning as he'd turned up at 8am and was surprised that no one was there! This could be because we'd agreed (with him) to meet at 7am and we all had finished breakfast by 7.30, Steve and Yiyi were leaving at 8.30, so Jeff did well to miss them! Jeff is a lovely guy and you can't help but like him, but time-keeping is not one of his strengths.
So Glyn and I got into the minibus for the last time, finally realising that the front seats we'd declined earlier were the best with better views and places to put our feet up. The traffic was heavy but we had plenty of time and had a good chat with Jeff. There was a gorgeous pink and gold sunset over the city behind us and it was very fitting that the sun was setting over a wonderful holiday.
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A Small Swede in the Big World
Per-Olof Persson
I so relate to all of this!
Every bit of what you wrote is very easy to relate to for me. I had the same experience when I visited earlier this year. Chinese tourists seem to be quite unison disliked in SE Asia and I understood why during my visit at the Grand Palace. I was also sped around for way to long but not in a taxi but in a rickshaw and the guy started out nicely but eventually turned out to be a douche. the sextourism wasn't fun for me as a guy either, I could barely step outside once the sun started to head downwards without being surrounded by throngs of women, one of them even smacked me (fortunately not in the face) just for saying no. It get's kind of annoying after a while to be considered only as a walking wad of money.