We touched down late last night, to us it was 12.30 but the local time was 9.30pm. I must say it was the easiest immigration we have gone through, which was a relief. We opted for a taxi into the city which only cost 200bht (less than 3 pounds for over 20km).
The hotel was everything I expected it to be, dark dingy with an over powering odor of damp, it was great. I would have been disappointed if it had been anything other. Within 1/2hr we were asleep.
We woke early the next day and with the drawing of the curtains was our first view of Bangkok. Little did we know that today was to be the best adventure yet!
After breakfast we ventured out into the mad streets of Bangkok. A 20min or so walk took us to our first sight of the day 'Wat Po' where a huge reclining Buddha was to be seen, the temple was a hive of activity with tour bus after tour bus and school child after school child which unfortunately made things hard to negotiate but we made it round.
After Wat Po we decided to walk along to the information cntr where we hoped to gather more info on what to see and do, then the most bizarre and amazing thing happened. People stopped in the middle of the street, those that were sat down stood up and someone at a bus stop shouted at us to stop. Now I had read somewhere that this happened when the national anthem was played so this is what we expected but then the king decided to fly by in his limo accompanied by his entourage, what a sight. It has to be noted that the Thais love their king and not one that we have spoken to date has said a bad word against him, unusual!
After that we continued our walk, a guy decided to walk at the side of us (I must break of to say that I hope with time I will become more trusting and realise it isn't like home and people aren't trying to rob you or sell you drugs all the time)and I thought 'oh great here we go' as it turned out he was an exceptionally friendly guy who worked where we were going and was a mine of information, not only was he pleasant to talk to he informed us where to go for the real taste of Bangkok where no other tourists would be. Infact we owe the rest of the day to him, because of 'chai' we managed to engage the services of a tuk tuk (scary as hell) for 70bht (normal tourist rate 200bht for short trip) for over 3hrs and saw some of the most amazing non tourist sights ever, infact because these sights were hardly ever visited the locals who could speak English asked us how we new. We explained (as per chais instructions) that we had a Thai friend, in reply they kept telling us that we were very lucky to see these sights and to have a Thai friend an I guess we were as the temples and Buddha's were 'Suay -maag' (very beautiful) so in less than a day we have seen
-Standing Buddha 32mtr high (bestowing blessing)
-Reclining Buddha (Enlightened)
-Sitting Buddha (Teaching/meditating depending on the hand position)
-We went to the first temple in Bangkok
-Got to Voglee but didn't get a Hugo Boss suit made
-Fed Cat fish in the river
-Cheated death on a Tuk Tuk
and had a truly wonderful day. Tomorrow we are off to the River Kwai.
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