Day 33: Bangkok, Thailand
“Where are you trying to get to?” Says the nice gentleman on the street corner who says he just happens to be waiting for his wife at the temple, he works at city hall next door, all in fairly good English. “Oh, you didn’t hear the news last night? The Royal Palace is only open to foreigners in the afternoon. But there is this great boat ride you can take…”. He magically takes out pen and paper to provide detailed instructions including how to ask in Thai the real price, so we can get a deal. Then hop on a Tuk-tuk (the open air taxis) that happens to be right there and are surprised the price the driver quotes us is just what this man said. No negotiating, which is usually expected. And off we go into traffic …
And then Siri says, “I think we have just been scammed.”
And she is right, of course. Fortunately, we didn’t lose a credit card or really any money and we did get to ride a ubiquitous Tuk-tuk, which we hadn’t done yet, and we got closer to the Royal Temple, which of course, is always open to everyone.
Pretty harmless in the end (we didn’t get on the boat ride) but it does put us a bit more on edge to not take the quick advice of strangers. We are in the big city now.
As we pass by a major attraction, (the Chinese government has ‘loaned’ a relic of the real Buddha (a few teeth) to be put on display for veneration), a nice Tourist Police officer (we remember meeting them on our first day, this one in a yellow polo shirt, not the more usual brown uniform) calls us over to help us get to the right place. (Yes, we do look like that foreign tourist – sort of hard to blend in). She also informs us to be on the lookout for people who will tell you the palace is closed and then they try to sell you something else. I tell her, yes, we have already had that experience.
We have a full first day going to the amazingly decorated golden palace and royal temple. We can see where the fanciful white and blue temples got their template from, right here in Bangkok. On every surface there is gold, ceramic, mosaics, and intricate details that mesmorize the eyes. It is just bigger, border, and much better kept up. We even stop in at the largest reclining Buddha before we head back to our hotel. 20,000+ steps later, we realize that maybe this wasn’t a real ‘rest’ day.
Over dinner, at another Michelin guide restaurant – yummy new flavors from Northeast Thailand, one of the places we have not visited, but we think of our niece, Mackenzie who taught in that region for three months – we start to plan a more relaxed day tomorrow.
I’ll tell you how we do.
Siri and David Adventures 