Bangkok: Day 3

Me at the Grand Palace

The third day of our trip would turn out to be the busiest of our adventure since it was the day we would be visiting all the various temples. We got up bright and early and walked down to the BTS. We took the BTS all the way to its last stop and would then take a ferry for the Chao Phraya River Tour. The river tour was quite the experience itself! We were one of the last people to board the boat so we had to cram on. I was either clicking away taking pictures or looking off into space dreamily and I guess getting in the way a lot, so I got yelled at a bit by the lady who was in charge of making sure everyone entered and exited the boat quickly and safely. Out of all the people we would encounter on our trip, she was probably the grumpiest but as far as grumpiness goes, she wasn't that bad.

The night before I had done some research on the dress code for entering the temples and was bummed that I hadn't managed to pack anything acceptable. I had only brought one dress that covered my shoulders and didn't really think much about the fact that it was made of polyester when I got dressed that morning. We knew you weren't supposed to wear shorts but I wasn't sure how long dresses had to be so we stopped at a shop along the way to the palace and bought some light cotton pants. I'm still kicking myself from not buying more pairs then since that would turn out to be the cheapest place to get them (100 baht or around $3 USD) and the merchant had so many cute prints. I also bought a cute cotton blouse that I would later change in to. The moment we walked onto the grounds of the palace an employee took one look at us and said, "Too short!" so I was glad we had just bought pants we could slip on instead of renting some.

Let me tell ya, this place was PACKED! Every time I visit a major tourist attraction I'm reminded of just how many human beings inhabit this planet. The line to get in was just wall to wall bodies and Michelle and I quickly got shoved into the rain gutter, haha. Anywho, the Grand Palace was totally mind blowing! Everything was gilded and the temples were so ornate and beautiful. The attention to detail was truly magnificent. I wish we could've gone on a day that wasn't swelteringly hot and humid so we could've spent more time there but I think we managed to see almost everything in about 2 1/2 hours. I saw these two sisters having their picture together holding hands and knew Michelle and I had to get a photo just like it. I asked a lady to take our picture and she was so cute and sweet. Her little girls wanted to know where we were from and we told them the USA and they bowed and said, "Nice to meet you! Nice to meet you!" It was the cutest!


We had to take our shoes off to go inside the main temple and I was pretty excited about that since I'd been sweating my butt off in combat boots. Inside the temple everyone was sitting down and saying a prayer to the Buddha so I made one too. Outside there was a bowl with lotuses floating in water that you could bless yourself with so Michelle and I both got blessed. We left the Grand Palace around 2pm and thought we'd head over to Wat Pho next and see the Reclining Buddha. This is when our day got a little bit more...spontaneous. We were standing on a street corner trying to figure out if we should go left or right when a guy asked us where we were trying to get to. We told him Wat Pho and he said we could take a tuk tuk for 30 baht (about $1) and we didn't have any idea where to go and they seemed so nice that we decided to jump in.


Wat Pho

I'm not normally the free spirited type so it was pretty exciting to just jump on this tuk tuk not knowing really where we were going. For the first few minutes I was thrilled to get off my feet and be racing down the streets of Bangkok but then we started to question where we were actually going. We asked our driver (who said he was 15 years old) and he said he was taking us to see the "Big Buddha" and then he'd take us to Wat Pho. We thought, alright, cool, let's do it! He took us to this other temple and said he'd wait outside for us. This Buddha was pretty big but not spectacular or anything. I was more taken with all the little kitty cats living at the temple. They were all super friendly and just lounging around all over the place. We only stayed about 5 minutes then we were back flying down the road. When we asked where we going now he said he was taking us to "Thai Center". We had never heard of anything called Thai Center and were like, "Wtf??" when he pulls up to some shop. He asked us to go inside for 5-10 minutes and he'd wait outside. At this point you'd think we'd have figured out we were getting the run-around but it hadn't hit us just yet. Once we walked into this shop, though, it became clear. This dude came up to us and asked us if we wear suits at all. We said no but he still suggested we get fitted for one anyway. We were like, "Um...BYE!" and immediately left this store. Our tuk tuk driver seemed a bit displeased but in a joking kind of way and we told him we were ready to go to Wat Pho. He drove a little ways then stopped again. This time he told us he had a deal with a few shops that if he brought tourists in for 5-10 minutes that they'd give him a voucher for free gas.

We weren't exactly happy about this arrangement but this boy looked hard for 15 so we thought we'd do him a solid. Michelle and I are both terrible at lying, though, so this turned out to be more difficult than we'd imagined. We walked in and saw all of these other tourists who were in the same boat as us. We looked at some catalogs and made some bogus chatter about shirts and stuff. Then a guy came over and he was all business. He was ready to lock this sale down. We told him we were still thinking about it and not necessarily ready to buy blah blah blah. It seemed like we'd already been in this place forever when I (what I thought was discreetly) glanced at my watch. The guy caught me doing this and was like, "If you're just here for the gas coupon, I already gave it to him so you can leave." We were a bit stunned by this abrupt dismissal but were happy to get the heck out of there all the same. When we got back in the tuk tuk our driver was like, "Ok, just one more stop." and Michelle lost all patience with him. It was pretty awesome! She was like, "No more stops! Just take us to Wat Pho!" After about 2 minutes of arguing back and forth with this kid she said, "100 BAHT AND NO MORE STOPS!" Begrudgingly, he took her money and didn't speak to us for the rest of the ride over to Wat Pho. By the time we arrived at the temple he'd wasted about an hour of our time :/



Reclining Buddha

Wat Pho was a totally different vibe from the Grand Palace and a lot less crowded. It was really peaceful and tranquil. One of the residents at my work had told me all about it and said I MUST get a picture of the Reclining Buddha's head and feet so I was looking forward to doing that. Once we got out tickets, though, I made a beeline for the bathroom and changed out of my sticky dress and put on my airy cotton blouse. It felt so good! The Reclining Buddha was fantastic and even more impressive in person than I thought it would be. It was around 4pm by the time we got finished at Wat Pho and were starving so we went in search of food. We somehow managed to find the dock to get us back on the ferry and from there we would pass China Town so we thought we'd get off and see if we could find some food.



Michelle and I in our "tourist pants"

China Town turned out to be a bit too much for us after the busy day we'd had so we gave up trying to find food there after about 15 minutes. It was mostly just endless rows of shops selling all kinds of junk. We did take a small sugar break so we wouldn't pass out on the journey home, though. Once we got back to the apartment the pool looked so inviting so I took a quick dip before we got dressed for dinner. I felt loads better after cooling off  and changed into the bamboo flip flops I bought in China Town. We then walked around the neighborhood and saw a cute little restaurant (with air conditioning) so we poked inside to see if they might have tofu--I need protein BAD. The waitress didn't understand that we just wanted to look at the menu and proceeded to seat us at a table and Michelle was like, "I guess we're eating here."

Their menu was HUGE and lucky for me included a vegetarian section. Michelle ordered the pad thai and I ordered the red curry and added tofu to it. After fasting pretty much all day this food was DELICIOUS and it was SO CHEAP! Both of us ate for like, 8 bucks! My meal took a lot longer to prepare so I kept stealing bites of Michelle's pad thai until it was ready. I found out that there aren't a whole lot of vegetarian options in Bangkok (most people didn't know what the heck tofu or bean curd was) so we would end up eating dinner at this restaurant every night for the rest of the trip, haha.

We turned in pretty early that night because we were totally worn out from our busy day and we knew we'd have to be up super early the next morning to journey over to the island of Koh Samed. I'll tell you that tale in my next post :)

Bangkok: Days 1 & 2

Terminal 21 (Tokyo Level)

It's been a week since I returned from my vacation in Thailand and I'm happy to say that it was one of my best trips ever! Let me start from the beginning:

Our journey to Bangkok started mighty early, 4am to be exact. When we set out on the road the whole city of Phoenix was covered in fog. You could barely see 20ft in front of the car. It was quite spooky. Our flight was supposed to depart at 7am but we didn't end up taking off until nearly 8am since the pilot had to wait for a gap in the fog to appear. Michelle fell asleep shortly after we boarded and woke up before we'd even left and was like, "Are we there already?" and I had to tell her we hadn't even taken off.

We had a layover at LAX then it was off to Tokyo. Our flight to Narita airport took about 11 hours and to be honest, it was pretty brutal. I cannot sleep on an airplane to save my life so I watched a buttload of movies. Here's what I remember watching in case you're curious: The Giver, The Fault in Our Stars, Frozen, Sixteen Candles, WALL-E, and Only Lovers Left Alive. I had planned on finishing "A Dance with Dragons" but once I was on the plane I did not feel like reading at all. I wish I'd remembered to request a vegetarian meal as well because all they served was meat on both flights so I only ate salads and bread that day. I even had to eat an egg and biscuit sandwich (I HATE the taste of eggs) just so I wouldn't drop dead. Once we arrived in Tokyo I perked up a bit. They had so many adorable Studio Ghibli things for sale and I made a mental note of all the things I wanted to buy on my return trip. We connected to our Bangkok flight about 6:30pm (Tokyo time) and arrived in Thailand at about 12am. Blurrgghhh...




A lovely bunch of Totoros

It was about 27 hours of traveling and such a LONG day. Michelle's mother, Pamela (I instantly adored her!), met us at the airport with a taxi. Even though I was so exhausted I had trouble falling asleep because A.) I was so excited to finally be in Bangkok and B.) there was this horrible bird outside my window that made this wailing sound at all hours of the day. I only got about 6 hours of sleep that night and was expecting to have horrible jet lag but I didn't really experience any at all. The first thing we did that morning was take a dip in the pool. It was pretty chilly but I felt nice and refreshed afterwards. Next we walked over to Pamela's school and met up with her for lunch. I was amazed how cheap the food was. I had spaghetti for lunch that day which I thought was funny since I hadn't imagined myself eating any pasta on this trip.



Starbucks date

After lunch we decided to make our way over to the mall for a bit of shopping. We had to take the BTS (the sky train) to get there and that was an adventure in and of itself! We thought the train was just right up the street but it turned out to be about a mile from the apartment. We walked down a busy street loaded with street vendors and people eating delicious food. After about 10 minutes of walking we decided to ask if we were going in the right direction. The lady who we asked didn't speak much English but was able to communicate how to get to the train just through hand gestures which I thought was really cool. I loved the convenience of the BTS. Not only was it SUPER cheap, it was just so easy to use. All the directions to buy tickets and the stops were in Thai and English so it was easy for us to navigate our way around town. In the week we were there I don't think we ever got lost. It was mostly due to Michelle's natural good sense of direction but I'm still proud that two American girls were able to find our way all over Bangkok all by ourselves. It made me feel like I could go anywhere in the world and be okay.



Michelle on the BTS (the lady behind her cracks me up)

The mall we went to, Terminal 21, was absolutely HUGE and each level was divided into a different major city. There was Tokyo, London, Paris, and Qatar. I surprisingly didn't really buy anything, though. I think it was just too much and I really only wanted to buy authentic Thai souvenirs. All of the clothes at this mall were Western style and a bit pricey tbh. We got thirsty as heck after so much walking so we took a break at Starbucks. This Starbucks had the longest line I'd ever seen but we found out it was because Tuesday was buy one get one free day. We took a break for about an hour then headed back to the apartment to meet up with her mom again. What we would do that evening would turn out to be a LIFE EXPERIENCE.

Both of us were still hurting from being trapped inside that tin can they like to call an airplane for an entire day so we thought we'd treat ourselves to massages. Pamela told the ladies that we all wanted "oil massages" which were supposed to be comparable to Swedish massages but I don't think my lady got the message. For such a petite woman (she couldn't have been more than 5ft tall) she had hands of steel! She nearly broke me in half! It was all I could do not to cry out in pain. I figured I should let her do her thing, though, and that maybe after this horrible torture my muscles would feel better and for the most part, they did. However, she did leave me with bruises on my arms and legs. Another thing both me and Michelle weren't expecting was that she touched THE STUFF. I had never had a masseuse go so far up the leg before and got terrified as she got closer to it but then she kept grazing it like it was nbd. All I could keep thinking was, "AM I GOING TO GET A HAPPY ENDING?! I DIDN'T ASK FOR A HAPPY ENDING!!!" Then out of nowhere she climbed on the table like a ninja and was punching my back and pinching my neck. It was BANAYNAYS!!!




Street food!

After surviving a beating from a cute Thai lady we walked down the road for some street food. Luckily they had vegetarian food for me to eat. I got vegetables and noodles, an iced pineapple drink, and we split mango sticky rice (my new favorite thing). One of my favorite things about Thailand is how fresh the fruit is. I'd never had such delicious fruit in my life. We were eating tons of fruit every single day. You could get a giant plate of watermelon and pineapple for $1.50. It was MADNESS! Every single time I'd take a bite of juicy pineapple I'd have to exclaim, "OHMAHGAWD! HOW IS THIS SO GOOD?!" The fruit I buy in the states now tastes like total trash >________<

It was nice to have our first official day in Bangkok be a leisurely one because the next day was pretty action packed. I'll continue our story in my next post :)