by Awake? Where are we? Oh yes, Bangkok. The condensation of the outside of the window gave away the fact that although it was around 18° inside it was a lot hotter outside. Breakfast of Thai dishes and beautiful papaya was followed by an unexpected ‘complimentary’ half-day tour of Bangkok.
Firstly -our guide Tammy – Short, very short, but seemed quite friendly – Stop – Golden Budda (could not yet spell the word) by the end of the day……Buddha, buddha, buddha, buddha, buddha, bud….but, I digress). interesting and priceless – amazing that they “forgot’ it was golden. Next stop – Marble buddha – Marble temple with another buddha – looking like gold – but not. An ordination ceremony for the monks was underway. .Families of the new monks were there all dressed up for the occasion. We were invited to have our photos taken with some of the ladies in traditional Thai dress. (we did not object as we got to have our photo taken by Tammy with these ladies) This was the end of the tour…i may be cynical but.
We then proceeded to the “international gem store’ ISO 9002. The first gem store in the world to be certified. Thailand has significant resources in gems – mainly sapphires and rubies apparently 100% of the world’s ruby market.
At the gem store, we saw the method of extraction from the ground (i.e. a firehose) and the cutting and setting (live). After being chased and pressured to purchase (by our personal caretaker) we departed to the next famous site – a tailor shop – where again pressure mounted. The two tailors were nothing sort of pissed off with us. I also think Tammy was disappointed as he was not getting any ‘cut’.
Next, we went to the carpet shop, where after a goat beard carpets we escaped to end our complimentary tour, to be told that we must ‘tip’ the taxi driver – having only 100 baht notes, we gave him that and no change was forthcoming.- win some lose some – it was a trying morning without having seen some of the ore important Bangkok sites.
Grand Palace
Skipping lunch, after a filling breakfast we caught a reluctant cabbie only to be told that he would not take us -turns out he could see an airport trip with the people behind us, who he took even though we were there first – oh well. We caught the next cab and got ripped by about 70 baht on the price slowly learning the tricks. the cab was to the grand palace. It was great. the actual thing is even better the photos don’t do it justice.
we caught the free English tour then a short walk around the perimeter of the grand palace where we entered the temple of the reclining buddha.
After this buddha we caught a tuk-tuk (large lawnmower with three wheels)Spent the whole trip doubled over – not much headroom. After sore eyes and another ‘gas stop’ at a tailor shop, we eventually arrived at the world trade center – a westfield shopping town.
We tried unsuccessfully to call the nun in Hanoi, had our first film developed for $13AUD, and sent some emails to family and friends. We purchased food for dinner and walked back to the hotel through the shopping district. Dinner was eaten in our hotel room and off to bed
