Arriving after midnight early Saturday morning (after a day of work), the road to our hotel was clear. Bangkok is infamous for bad traffic, so we planned our hotels and flights around that.
On the first day, we would hit many of the popular tourist spots in the Old District. There are many canals, both large and small, throughout Bangkok. On one sign, they called the city the Venice of the East. Our first stop was Wat Arun Ratchawararam Ratchawaramahawihan, hugging the large canal that splits the city. Many seemed to find it a good spot to rent a traditional costume and take their new Instagram profile pictures.
Upon leaving, we boarded the 15 cent ferry to bring us one minute across the river to the next temple: Wat Phra Chetuphon (Wat Pho). This seemingly more impressive temple must house one of the largest statues of Buddha in the world. At least, one of the largest of him lying down. Although the statue is the main attraction, the temple grounds are massive. We took quite a bit of time to explore the temple itself and the stupas that jet out from the ground.
Upon leaving, a security guard stopped us and brought us to a map. At that point, we had no plans other than the fact we needed to address our hunger. He informed us how to use the tuk tuks in the best way and mapped out the rest of our day for us. He handed us a map with his sketches and waved down a tuk tuk. Apparently, we could get one for the rest of the day for only 3 dollars. The catch: he would bring us to a tailor and we would need to show interest for a few minutes. They pay the tuk tuks off for bringing them customers. More on this later.
Our next stop was for some pad Thai and to see a very large standing Buddha statue. I’ve got no idea where this was, we just rocked up in our tuk tuk.
Before our next stop, we went to go act interested in buying a suit. It was quite the performance, if I do say so myself. Anything to help our friendly tuk tuk driver. He would then bring us to the Golden Mount Temple, where we would walk up a few hundred steps to catch a good view of the city during golden hour.
About an hour later, we would return to our tuk tuk. However, he didn’t wait around for us. He gave us a free ride around the city; he even brought me around looking for an ATM while Elseline grabbed us lunch. Apparently the kickback from the tailor was good enough not to expect anything from us.
We finished our night at the famous backpackers street, Khaosan Road. We found a nice place to sit outside to catch a few live musicians plays some acoustic music. On our way home, we came across a man making a banana and Nutella crepe like dessert near the sky train.
As we planned our trip around traffic to and from the airport, we didn’t actually have much of a plan each day. We would figure it out as we went. After a late start and a massage the next morning, we went for a walk in Benchakitti Park. It rained the whole morning, hence the lazy start. We then went to an American military officer’s house, who fell in love with Bangkok during WWII and decided to come and live full time. He built his house in a very traditional way. Unfortunately, only a few years after finishing constructing the house and collecting a significant amount of artwork, he disappeared while hiking. No trace has ever been found of him. Now, his house is open to the public.
And for the highlight of the day, we took a canal tour on a longboat. We began the journey on the major canal, but soon ventured into the smaller canals. Seeing the city from the water brought a whole new perspective to it. Anybody close enough to the water took the time to wave and say hello to us. And finally, we went to Sampeng Night Market to cap the night off.
On our final day in Bangkok, we spent the morning transferring to an airport hotel because we would fly early the next morning and the hotel was in the same direction as Ayutthaya. After dropping our luggage, we opted for the local train to the second capital city of Siamese people some hundred years ago, poised north of Bangkok. For both of our train tickets, we paid less than a dollar. And when I say local, I mean local. While there wasn’t enough room to sit down, we had enough room to ourselves. Some people hung their heads out of the windows, as the train was cooled by the wind and a few overhead fans.
On arriving at the station, we hired a tuk tuk driver to bring us around for the next four hours. We hopped around to five different ancient sites around the area. We learned that the city had filled the power vacuum in the region after the city of Angkor fell (where we were 2 weeks ago). The city was attacked twice by the Burmese before it ultimately fell.
We would need to wait for the next train for about two hours. Luckily, a block away, there was a good air conditioned restaurant serving good food and drink. I started this writing on the train ride there and have finished it off standing on the slow train back to Bangkok. We’ll fly at 7:30am Tuesday morning.