Shane's Trip Journal

Day one: Left the hotel around 7am with no real destination except for Grand Palace which I had read about but unsure where it was, however I read it was in walking distance. As I was walking, I asked a local for directions to Grand Palace and the recommendations started from there. Three out of four times I would ask for direction there was another suggestion of a Temple or a tourist attraction not far away. I ended up seeing several temples (2 of which I was told was not normally open to the public but because I was walking by soon after the monks had finished their morning prayers they were able to let me in) as well as a custom suit shop by 1:30pm. Some of the stops included "Big Buddha" (30-40 meter high gold Buddha), "government travel agency", "Luck Buddha", and Wat Saket to name a few. Grand Palace was open at 1:30 and it was massive with impressive architecture. Part of the morning I traveled by Tuk-Tuk (3 wheeled open air motorcycle) that would take me to each destination and then wait while I toured each place. The Tuk-Tuk spent about 3 hours taking me to each destination while waiting on me to look and charged $40THB = $1.33USD. The people are very friendly. I have not felt anxious for my person security at any point but there are those that are looking to overcharge the tourist (I can see that the overcharging is going to be my biggest hurdle because of my lack of experience). The afternoon was spent walking through various street markets with a new friend ("Doo-Jun Park a civil engineer from Seoul, South Korea) that I met while walking as well as sampling some street food. So far the diet has included Pad Thai, Sprite, various fresh fruits, and bottled water. There are 7-11's (it seems) on every corner. ATM's are easy to find and use. So far many of the locals either speak some English and a few are fluent. Back to hotel around 10 to rest up for day two. I will add some photos to the galleries.