Mourning a King - A visit to the Palace

Our last day in Bangkok before we travel 750km on our last overnight bus (thank god) to Krabi. From here we are on the home straight to Singapore which means our adventure is fast approaching its conclusion.

Today, we decided to reattempt the palace, with Jamie now in the right attire, but he was cursing the requirements (being long pants) which were causing him to sweat more profusely than normal (mmmm so sexy). After breakfast, we took the tourist boat up the river and 20 minutes later we were at the Palace pier. We made our quick escape and walked towards the Palace, where we were greeted with security checks and asked if we had any weapons on us. Last time I checked, I didn't look like the type of person who would carry a pistol in their pocket, but I suppose appearances can be decieving.

After a brief walk, we made our way into the Palace grounds, where our bags were checked again before heading to the kiosk to pay our 500 baht per ticket. What we didn't realise is that on Mondays, the actual palace building is closed and only the temples can be viewed. Of course no discount was offered for being only able to see half the complex. Boo.

We followed the hordes of people entering the temple complex and once inside we were greeted by huge numbers of tour groups and a lot of screaming tour guides trying to keep their tour participants in check. The complex was beautiful and ornate, but the shear number of people and noise made it incredibly overwhelming. We walked around the various gold buildings which showcased beautiful mosaics, and then enter the temple with the emerald buddha, which is tiny in comparison to other buddhas we have seen, but very important and significant to the Thai people. After a quick look around, we decided we had had enough of the crowds and tried to exit the complex but were greeted with a large number of people trying to do the same thing through a very small and narrow door. The problem was that the exit route for tourists was also the route taken by mourners going to pay their respects to the King lying in state. The security had to stop the locals from going further to let the tourists past and vice versa which resulted in a massive pile up. People were starting to get pushy, but they chose the wrong people to mess with, as our waterpolo skills were put to good use. Two ladies tried to elbow me out the way, but I wasn't having any of it and used my hip to make that known. They didn't try again. People were trying to push Jamie from behind so he took a step backwards to make sure they understood what NOT to do. We realised then we probably lived in London too long, as the old Courtney and Jamie would have saved such interactions for the swimming pool.

When we finally escaped, we quickly walked past the front of the palace and out through the exit wanting to get away as fast as possible. We made the decision to walk the 1km to Wat Pho, another temple with a giant buddha to the south of the palace. After a quick walk around, we took a little ferry boat for 3.5 baht each across the river to Wat Arun, which unfortunately was covered with scaffolding which reduced its aesthetics and feel. Starting to feel a bit templed out, we decided some shopping was in order (when I say we, I mean me), so we took the tourist boat and headed to Chinatown.

If I thought Bangkok was dirty, we hadn't seen anything yet. As most Chinatown's go, it was an area filled with markets selling the cheapest merchandise you could find. It was incredibly busy with scooters and delivery men trying to negotiate alleyways filled with people which were also only the width of two small people across. After our time at the Grand Palace, we had enough of noise and quickly tried to find the closest back alley to continuing walking south to River City, a nice air conditoned mall. On the way we walked through various roads specific for selling shoes (my dream) and car parts (my nightmare) with food street vendors at every corner selling their specialities.

Upon arriving at the mall, we found the nearest coffee shop and got a blended espresso to cool down. After a bit of a rest we had a quick walk around before walking the 20 minutes to our hotel. We were about 1.5 hours early before we had to catch our taxi to the bus station, so I decided to go across the road to get the best foot massage I ever had. After 1 hour, I was nicely relaxed and made my way back to the hotel where I met Jamie and we ordered a taxi.

This is where stuff got interesting, our hotel concierge had told our driver where we were going and we reconfirmed with her when we got in the cab. Happy, we went on our merry way and fortunately in the direction of the bus station. About half way through our 15km ride, our driver started saying "sorry, sorry, sorry" and turned off her meter and turned us around going back towards the hotel. Before we could really understand anything that was happening and say anything, she came off at the first exit and found another taxi parked up on the side of the curb. She got out, went and had a discussion with him and then came back beckoning us to get out of her taxi and into his and didnt charge us a thing. It was all a bit dodgy and we didnt know what to think - were we going to get taken to an ATM and made to withdraw all our money, or taken to the pornographers like the signs said at the temple the other day? Not really having much in the way of transportation options in the area, we had to grin and bear it, with Jamie sitting in the front seat making sure the driver was aware that we were following his every move with Google maps. Fortunately. 20 minutes later we found ourselves standing outside the bus terminal, thanking our lucky stars that we were overreacting to a very weird situation.

We grabbed our tickets for our 750km journey, had a quick meal and jumped on the bus. Out of the three buses we havr taken on this trip, this one was certainly more comfortable with wider seats built for normal sized human beings not midgets. However, my comfort was soon to be short lived when the German or Dutch man in front of me, shoved his seat right back into my lap squashing my legs. When I looked at everyone elses seats, they did not appear to go back nearly as far so I think his seat was broken. My politeness today would be the death of my sleep, as I missed my opportunity to say anything to him initially, I didnt think I could say anything 5 minutes later. I just tried to make him aware of how uncomfortable he was making me by being passive aggressive, shoving my knees into the back of his chair or smacking his head rest with my legs everytime I moved. This was the start of a very uncomfortable night.Read more