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Published: June 18th 2008
Tall Buddha
One of the sights on our 'tuk tuk' tour.We arrived in Thailand at about 4pm on Monday 16th June. It was raining heavily when we arrived and was very humid. Fortunately we managed to find a taxi outside the airport without too much hassle and travelled for nearly 2 hours (due to heavy traffic) to Banglamphu where we were staying. Our guesthouse, Lamphu House caused the driver a little difficulty in finding because it was tucked away down a side street, but we found it in the end thanks to my beady eyes! Our room is lovely and clean and we are trying to manage with just a fan although it is very hot - around 32ºC and humid.
On our first night we did not venture from our guesthouse which has a restaurant attached to it, but on day 2 we decided to do some exploring. Within 5 minutes of leaving the guesthouse we were accosted by tuk tuk drivers (small taxis with 3 wheels) offering us cheap deals to all the main sights - we knew better than to agree to this, having being warned by friends and The Lonely Planet of their scams to take you to a tailors on route to your destination. However
we were sucked in by the charms of a Thai passer-by who kindly helped us read our map (neither of us are good at directions) and then bartered with a tuk tuk driver to drive us to some sights for 40baht (about 60p) because it was a day for promoting Thai tourism. We fell for this and got in, unsure of where we were going. After being taking to several Buddha images - none of which were on our map, followed by a tailor and a travel agent posing as an official Government travel advisory we had had enough and paid the driver off and then made off on our own two feet - angry we had fallen for the scam! After a couple of hours of wandering aimlessly we made it back to a proper temple and then on to our guesthouse for a much deserved rest.
Today we decided to do it our own way and headed for the Grand Palace on foot - a collection of royal halls, temples and museums. In the grounds we got to see the Temple of the Emerald Buddha - Wat Phra Kaew which was actually made of jade. After this
we visited Wat Pho, a giant reclining Buddha - 46 metres long and 15 metres high followed by Wat Arun, a large 82 metre Khmer Style Temple.
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Christine Daw
non-member comment
Episode 2
Glad to see you safely arrived. Waiting for adventures from Hua Hin - did you go there by train or bus? When in Bangkok you could try the Rose Garden (a park) which has elephants. This was recommended to us by Thai residents some years ago when we visited.