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Woke up refreshed this morning and planned to go see the Grande Palace and the local Zoo after breakfast (snotty eggs!!) Off we trot with map in hand, 10 mins down the road we stop to check the map and immediatel;y get approached by 2 Thai women who are happy to help and tell us where we are.....she informs us that we cant go to the Grade Palace because we are wearing flip flops, shorts and vest tops and you have to be covered up otherwise its disrespectful!! Oh and then she tells us that the Zoo is best at the weekends (todays friday) because they have all the animal shows.......thats those plans out the window then!!
She then proceds to tell us that today is a special day and there is a festival so entrance to go and see all the Buddhas is free for one day only and the best way to get around and see them all is by tuk-tuk, after finding out it would cost us 10 baht each (15p) to go around the city and dropped back at our hotel we thought...result!!! Bargain!!!!
We wanted to take a photo of these 2 Thai women who had helped us but apparently today was similar to our Halloween and its considered bad luck to be photographed today?!
First stop the Lucky Buddha which is beautiful (and hopefully the photos come out ok) Second stop a tailors!!! Yeah that was my reaction too......we descovered the tuk tuk drivers take you where ever they want to go!!! Anyway we said that we didnt want anything from the tailors but the tuk tuk driver got a petrol coupon for taking us there anyway..guess this is like their commision for taking tourists there.....The next stop was the TAT (tourist information) where we looked at the options we have for when we travel down south to all the islands.
40 mins later we told them thank you for your help and we'll go away and discuss it, this didnt go down to well as they wanted us to book there and then! Out we come to our tuk tuk driver and he wasnt impressed that we didnt book anything (again must be the commision thing) so off we went to the Sitting Buddha.....or so we thought!
Dropped outside we went into where he had said the Buddha was, to me it looked still under construction as no one was about and there were builders doing something......after walking around for about 10 mins we agreed that there was definately no Buddha here! We returned to the drop off point only to realise the tuk tuk driver had done one!!! Abandoned us!! Its wasnt until we realised that A) we hadnt paid him yet and B) we'd had a free ride round Bangkok all afternoon!! As it turned out we wasnt that far from our hotel so we just walked back towards the hotle.
Back on more familiar grounds (khao san rd) we decided we'd earnt ourselves a massage, traditional thai, 100 baht for half hour (about 1 pound 70) Heaven!! After the massage we got chatting to a couple of guys Ben and Mark who were both travelling alone but met up, Ben was heading North to Chang Mai but Mark was staying in Bangkok for a little while so we invited him to come see the Golden Palace with us tonight. We'd been told there was some festival going on and that it'll be really happening...cool!!
It took 40 mins to get to the top of the Golden Mount, there were stalls there selling everything from deep fried cockroach to tv ariels!! We were literally the only westeners there!,,oh well, when in Rome! Me and Alicia managed to get blessed by and Monk who sprinkled some water over us and was chanting but Lich got up half way throught because she thought he had finished and hadnt so we are probably jinxed now,,cheers Lich :)
So back down to ground level we head for something to eat....sounds easy eh?! No! Another 40 mins later, sweating, no air and lack of food was not helping it was a human traffic jam! Eventually got back to the Khao San Rd and had some dinner at a place called Charts Guest House where we spotted our first Lady-boy.....there was no mistaking it!!!
Heading back towards the hotl we spotted 45 min foot massages for 120 baht (under 2quid)...why not is what i thought!! In for a penny!! It was so relaxing until you opened your eyes and realised there were a million people walking past and watching....bovered!
All in all a pretty good day....oh apart from after taking 9 photos on my camera its telling me "memory card full"!! not impressed. Thats going straight into Kodak tomorrow...lucky enough there are everywhere...just as well!
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