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Adventures of a Global Wanderer
As Wat Po was by the river I thought I could goto the river and take a ferry further upstream to the royal palace and barge museum. As this was my first time on the ferry I didnt realize there were different types of ferries. The fare was 3B (10 cents) but this just crossed the river to the other side rather than going up river. On this side of the river was Wat Arun another large stupa. Entrance was 50B ($1.75) but I decided not to as there were going to be so many temples. Outside the temple they were doing a chinese dragon and lion dance. There were also uniformed sailors holding some procession carriage. I went round in circles in the complex trying to find my way out onto the street. I knew there were two mosques near here but because I hadnt planned on coming as the ferry went the wrong way, my maps and info were all back at the hostel. I tried walking up and down, climbing up a pedestrian overpass, but I couldnt find or see anything. I tried asking a local but they had no clue. Back on the main street I saw a sign to two mosques. One of them was 70m but when I tried to walk down the street there was a wild dog savagely barking loose on the street so I had to turn back. I went a long way round and made my way back. The first one Tonson Mosque was by a canal along the river. This was in arabic style and painted brown. The mosque was closed but I pushed open the chair holding the door from the inside to get in. Outside there was a muslim cemetary. The Tonson mosque is the oldest muslim mosque. The second one, the bangluang mosque, was harder to find. This was the more interesting built in thai style architecture. This was built by thai muslims who chose to live along the bangluang canal during king Taksins fight to liberate thailand from burma in 1767. I tried asking some locals again but they kept pointing me different ways. This led back to another temple complex by the river. Some people here were giving me wrong info again and telling me to go with them on their motorbike. I didnt want to pay as I wasnt sure they knew where I wanted to go or where it was. There was a school holding some kind of event with drink stalls set up outside. I thought it would be safe to ask them. Again they had to try to figure out where I wanted to go, and how to explain to me in english. One person gave me his gps showing me where I was, which I didnt need to know, I needed to know where to go. As they couldnt explain one guy told me to just go with him on his motorbike. He rode back to the main road and crossed it. Then I saw a sign for the mosque. He went down an alley for about 500m which I wouldnt have found off the main road. He dropped me by the mosque, turned around and left before I could offer him any money. This building did not look like a mosque, it had a long pointed roof and no minaret. I tried to go in but it was closed again but not padlocked. I tried to open the bolt and someone asked me who I was and what I wanted. I explained I was here to take a picture of the mosque and that I was muslim. He said to come back at 7pm. It was barely 5pm and I didnt want to wait two hours for the next prayer just to get in. I explained I cant stay or come back another day and this was my only time to visit. Then he said he would ask his uncle. Immediately a group of robed men appeared at the mosque wanting to know who I was. I explained that I was muslim from Pakistan (for simplicity sake). They all wanted to talk to me and curious who I was. I've seen other tourist pics of this mosque so dont know why it would be so strange for a visitor to come? Then they opened the mosque, turned the lights on and let me take pics. The mihrab rathar then being a usual alcove was in thai traditional architecture like the temples I had seen. They then wanted to talk more with me now that a group had gathered. They wanted me to stay with them for a few days, which politely I explained that I could not. Then I asked if I could get halal food here. They took me to a lady outside the mosque who made fresh pad thai chicken for 30B ($1) along with buzzing mosquitoes. It was nice with bean sprout, chicken, wide noodles, and shrimp, with parsley and indian curry sauce. I wanted to leave but had sort of committed myself to staying for the 7pm prayer since they had kindly opened the mosque for me and shown me where to get a meal. So we had about 45 minutes more to kill where they explained more of their religious practices not quite grasping that I was muslim and knew all of this, and wanting to know 'how much muslim I was'? For the prayer because I was wearing shorts they gave me one of those skirts to wrap around but they had to do it for me as it was three times my waist. At the end of the prayer they started chanting like tarabi prayers which we dont normally do. Again I wanted to leave now but was told if I waited five minutes they would give me a ride. This five minutes became an eternity as they gathered around me again for a final sermon. Again they preached the virtues of being muslim and leading a dutiful life. I'm not quite sure what they made of me since I had clearly just prayed with them and had knowledge of islam that they were explaining to me. By this time they clued in that I spoke Urdu so one of the burmase persons tried speaking some words to me but we couldnt carry a conversation. Then they decided to take a group photo with my camera as I was finally whisked away by the imam on his motorcycle in his turban and robes. I offered him 100B ($3) to give as charity in the mosque for the ride home as it would have cost the same by taxi. Then I went into the train station to cancel my ticket to Ayutthaya I had bought earlier. There was way too much to see in bangkok so it seemed no point to take a day trip out as I would miss out on places in bangkok. At the ticket counter he said I would only get 50% of my 245B back ($8) but I said fine as there was really no point in going with this many things to see in bangkok, and I hadnt even done the royal palace yet and would have been too short of time and rushed if I did do the day trip.
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