Bangkok

We arrived in Bangkok and hired a “limo” to the hotel for 1050 baht. Sounds like a lot of money, but it was only $45. Once we settled in our room, we wandered around the neighbourhood looking for sustenance. Hmm… massage parlours after massage parlours.. how many massage parlours do they need in Bangkok? Are we in the wrong part of town? Nope, that’s Bangkok city for you, like my brother said, Bangkok is one big massage parlour. Not wanting to go too far from the hotel, we settled on mediocre food at some Thai chain fast-food restaurant. (In hindsight, A&W would have been better.)

On Tuesday, we caught a Grab (which is the local Uber) to the Grand Palace. As we were walking towards the entrance, we encountered our first scam. This guy told us that the Grand Palace is closed and is only opened to the Thai people. Sure buddy, we read about this scam on the internet. I told him I checked the website and it is open, that shut him up. The Grand Palace was very busy, we had to line up to enter one of the temples, everyone was carrying their shoes in plastic bags as we worked our way into the temple. It was very busy and everyone was pushing their way to move forward in the line up. Seemed so rude but it is something you need to do otherwise you get left behind. Every once in a while I did a subtle hip check to prevent someone from budging.

After the Grand Palace we went to the malls – apparently it is one of the popular activities here in Bangkok. Well, a mall is a mall, is a mall. We had a good lunch and then made our way back to the hotel by foot. The walk was a “meet the locals” experience for the kids. They saw beggars on the street where many were blind, one had no legs, another had no hands… We also saw many of the street food vendors.. It sure would be nice to have a ice cold juice or some fresh fruit but…… we know better, not interested in visiting the porcelain throne more than we need to.

After experiencing the crowd at the Grand Palace and walking along the streets of Bangkok, Jeff and I were in no mood to join in the new year countdown that is just a 10 minute walk from the hotel. Besides we saw that the army and police were getting organized for the celebration – that made us feel a bit uncomfortable about our safety. At midnight, I was awoken by the sound of fireworks. I could see it from the balcony of our room that is on the 30th floor. Can’t complain about getting woken up to see the fireworks.

On New Year’s Day, we went to Lumpini Park. It was created in the 1920s by King Rama VI on royal land. The 142 acre park in the city has an artificial lake and is popular with both tourists and locals. The local wildlife include many birds, tortoises, snakes and monitor lizards. Fortunately I did not see any snakes but we saw a number of monitor lizards. They also have outdoor gyms in the park with equipment that is way past its prime. We saw the trainer at one of the outdoor gyms – he was well defined and put on a show for us tourists – he launched himself off the chin up bar, clapped his hands, grab the bar and up he went into another handclap, he did this a few times. (Sure felt guilty about indulging on this trip!)

After the park we went to MBK – a popular mall with both tourists and locals. Well, lots of fake goods there… but that’s not our style. Anyway, nothing to buy, onwards to a restaurant for lunch which was quite good again.

An interesting point to note is that all the shopping malls have metal detectors as you enter it. This came in place after the many bombings in Thailand. But you know what, the guards don’t even care when the metal detectors go beep beep beep… Many of the articles I read said it is more for show.

We also took a day trip to Ayutthaya which is an UNESCO heritage site.The Historic City of Ayutthaya, founded in 1350, was the second capital of the Siamese Kingdom.  It flourished from the 14th to the 18th centuries, during which time it grew to be one of the world’s largest and most cosmopolitan urban areas and a center of global diplomacy and commerce. Enroute to Ayutthaya, we stopped by Bang Pa-In which is the summer residence of the King of Thailand. Amidst vast gardens and landscaping, there are many buildings of European and Chinese influence.

Onwards to Ayutthaya. The ruins in Ayutthaya cover a large area but most tourists head over to the star attraction – the Buddha head in the banyan tree. As it is deemed unrespectful to be at a higher level when taking pictures with Buddha statues, selfies are not allowed and you must be sitted when posing. There is even a security person stationed at the tree to ensure that the rules are followed.

After the tour we headed back to Bangkok via the Chao Phraya river on one of those dinner cruise boat – except that it was a lunch cruise for us. The weather was too hot to go out on the deck so we stayed in the lower deck most of the time. The view was nothing spectacular and it took us just over two hours to return.

On our last night in Bangkok, we decided that we wanted a good dinner and so we grabbed a Grab (Uber) to the restaurant for 85 baht. After dinner, we had to do the tourist thing – ride a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. So… here comes the negotiation where our acceptable price is based on our earlier Grab ride. We were quoted anywhere from 150-200 baht but was only willing to pay 100 baht for the experience. We finally found a driver that agreed to our price. Boy oh boy, that CAD$4.50 ride was definitely an experience. This is the Bangkok traffic experience – heat and exhaust. Our slow start quickly turned into an amusement ride – the tuk-tuk driver went down the middle of the road towards oncoming traffic at full speed with his little engine revving. He sped past the road leading to our hotel only to make a u-turn further down the busy road. Yup, that was fun alright, we got a thrilling ride for just over a buck each…

Today is a long travel day, we fly to Hong Kong to catch our return flight to Vancouver. Marcus is looking forward to the new movie selection and Jeff is dreading the bad food. I can’t wait to get home and start my new weight-loss and exercise program!