Bankok - Day 1


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Asia » Thailand
April 13th 2016
Published: November 10th 2017
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Lucky BuddhaLucky BuddhaLucky Buddha

Reclining Buddha
Geo: 13.741, 100.541

So today was the true start to our Thai adventure. We started with a hearty breakfast, compliments of our swish hotel, so we ate heartily because well....we've already paid for it. We decided today we would head into the main part of town and look for the Songkran festival. Today is the Thai new year and they celebrate with a water festival...basically a big water fight across the city. We worked out we could walk to the a canal down the road and catch a boat to the river. Except when we got to the canal, there were no boats. Because new years is a holiday! So we continued walking down the road in search of a train station. Jo was keen to attempt the buses but I wasn't really feelin it. They looked hot and who knows where the hell we'd end up. We ended up talking to a local who took charge of our map, marking out the things we should see, hailed a tuk tuk, bartered a price for us and bundled us off to the temple of the lucky Buddha

Now we had not intended to go temple hopping today but the temple of the lucky Buddha is only open to the public for one day of the year. Our tuk tuk driver told us to buy flowers and some incense to offer to the temple. While we were walking around we met another local who was waiting for his family to finish praying. He walked us around the temple and taught us how to pray to the lucky buddha. Basically steeple the fingers, pray, nod and then take a piece of gold leaf off the sleeping Buddha and stick it on ones forehead....felt a little like vandalism to me. He was a very nice man though. We talked about lots of thai stuff but he did mention to that if we wanted to buy jewellery today is the day to do it. Normally the tax on precious stones is 195% but as a gift to the public the government is making them tax free for new years day. Fun fact, Siam made its money mining precious stones. But the industrial age has brought new and improved ways of mining, and in 35 years they have almost exhausted the supply. Its expected the mines will run dry in two years.

The next stop was supposed to be on the river so we could catch a boat up to the temples. But our tuk tuk driver thought we might like this shop he knew about. He did that quite a lot on the way to the river. Twice in fact. The first time was to a gem shop even though we both insisted we weren't in the market despite gems being tax free today. Actually the store manager was quite funny. He saw the emerald in Jo's necklace and decided she needed an emerald ring to match it. However before he put it on her finger he asked my permission to touch her hand. I explained it was not my permission he needed. Then ensued 20 minute of the hard sell, the entire time he kept talking to me, as though I controlled Jo's purchase decision. We tried the "oh damn I l ft my credit card at the hotel trick" He offered to charge the hotel for us. Finally we took his card with a promise to return and made our escape.

We jumped into our tuk tuk,...righto to the river....via a dressmaker apparently. When we escaped the dressmakers (who fortunately worked out we weren't
Siam SquareSiam SquareSiam Square

Happy Songkran
buying anything rather quickly our tuk tuk guy is took us to the river....where he had a tour booking agent lined up for us. The tour was far to much by our estimation so we paid tukkie his fare and started walking. Tukkie then felt bad and took us to the pier where we could catch a public boat. Clearly the whole thing was a scam. I think even the nice dude at the temple was a mole. Maybe there is no tax on precious gems. Who knows. Well they managed to get the 30 baht for the fare out of us, but that was all. Hope you had fun fellas.

So after a brief jaunt down the river we disembarked the public boat where all the other touristy looking people got off. We walked along the river behind the grand palace looking for the water festival. Got spayed with water once, but no festival as such. We only found one fountain where we could cool off. Man is it hot here! So we gave up and grabbed another tuk tuk to Siam place. On the way we were hit with water several times. Once from a motor cyclist. Once from another tuk tuk driver. Another from a street vendor. I decided this is just an excuse for the locals to throw stuff at the tourists. Upon reaching Siam square our tuk tuk driver changed the price. Seriously these guys a dodge. He got the agreed price weather he wanted it or not.

So at Siam square we finally found the water festival. It was fun but our original plan involved finding a bar to observe the festivities. No such luck. It is a dry event about water and we were in the thick of it. We got drenched, with water that is. We later read in the LP guide they target well dressed tourists. I don't know about the well dressed bit but I might as well been walking around with a target on my back....and front...and arms and legs and just about everywhere. After a while Jo had had enough of all that youthful exuberance (it was mostly young pups there) and we made our way to the exit. However navigating the way to the nearest bar was quite scary. The sidewalks are smooth concrete, slick with water. My feet are wet, my thongs are wet, the concrete is wet. There were people everywhere and even though we are out of the festival and on the street we are still getting pounded with water. At one point we were walking past a pedestrian overpass and a guy coming down the stairs dropped water balloons. I'm not sure if it was balloons or buckets but I was almost blind. Jo made the brilliant decision to use the stairs to reach higher ground.

Across the pedestrian overpass we made it to civilisation. We were able to walk down the street in relative safety with only the odd water gun or slippery piece of concrete. We made it to central world (one of the 500 million shopping centres here) where there was a nice bar conveniently located at the entryway. We had a beer or two while we considered our options. We agreed our hotel pool sounded like a great option. So we studied our map and figured we were within walking distance of home Had we known the Songkran carnage that lay ahead of us we would have risked another dodgy tuk tuk. Some sections of the walk were free and clear, some were fraught with water guns galore and slippery concrete abounded. In some parts the human traffic was so thick we were should to shoulder with pushy wet people everywhere.

Finally we made it to the refuge of our hotel. We went in search of the pool and were very impressed with our discoveries. We were even more impressed with the lively staff who kept the Singha's flowing.

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