Thursday, October 30 8.31 pm Thailand / 6.30 am US
After our monstrously huge breakfast, we caught up with Nok, our tour guide. And I mean that literally because one minute she was in the lobby waiting for us to finish our online log and the next thing we know, we LOST our guide. And she's not even 5 feet tall!! Don't ask us how but we did. We walked inside and then outside the hotel, looking like crazy lost Americans. And lo and behold she popped out of the blue. Hee hee, she was in our tour van. =P
Off we go, oh yeah, the tour's going to be a private one for us since most of our supposed tour companions had cancelled due to the coup (aka "the mob" or "anti-government" according to Nok and the Thai residents) that is taking place right now (we found this out later at lunch with Nok). Our 1st stop was Wat Pho (or Phra Chetuphon) and the Reclining Buddha. It was AMAZING to see how gi-normous the reclining Buddha was (according to Ryan: "It was one big ass Buddha!"). It's 150 feet long and 49 feet high. I knew it was going to be big, but I didn't expect it to be THAT BIG. Plus the temple was beyond our imagination as every piece of colored glass, mother of pearl inlay, and porcelain was hand-crafted and placed. In addition, the walls were all hand-painted! It took 3 years to build the Buddha and his temple - we're never going to complain about our jobs again.
We saw 2 more temples: Wat Arun (or Temple of the Dawn) and the temple where the Emerald Buddha is kept. Wat Arun required us to climb up a really, really, really steep staircase ie we had to hold on to the railing with both hands to ascend and I was pretty much scooting down each step since my legs were so wobbly from fear on the way down. It was totally worth it! As for the Emerald Buddha, no pictures were allowed but he's made of jade and not emerald.
Oh yeah, the monsoon.... we were caught in a torrential rainstorm while we were visiting the Emerald Buddha. We had to duck into all the alcoves and niches on our way to the Grand Palace. But we got a first-hand experience of the friendliness of the Thai people: we (meaning all the tourists) were stuck at the temple for the Emerald Buddha since we all didn't have umbrellas. The security guard then took off one of the large umbrellas used for outdoor seating and walked us in individual groups across the courtyard so that we could continue touring the palace grounds. I don't think any American security guard would have done that! What do you think?
We saw the rest of the Grand Palace grounds (only part of the 6 acres since people are only allowed in the "outer" grounds) and consisted of the palace (made of Italian, English, and Thai architecture). We saw the viewing area for the King's sister as she passed away earlier in the month and the Thai people are mourning her passing. We weren't allowed in since we weren't appropriately dressed in all black.
Lunch time: S&P Bakery was our stop and we had another huge lunch. Guava freeze drink, papaya salad with seafood, crispy noodle in chicken curry, Thai fried rice, pad thai, and fresh fruits (watermelon, papaya, and pineapple)! Another winning set of food!
Tour of Vinamek (?) Mansion... eh, we could've done without it. It was a huge 81-room mansion, but all mansions look alike after a while. =P
Ooo, the Chao Praya river tour was fun, though. We got to see first-hand how the Thai people live along the rivers. Really interesting as we saw really nice-looking houses interspersed with broken-down waterfront houses. We also got to feed some "Thai catfish" near a Buddhist temple. Man, were they aggressive! They were jumping onto each other just to eat a piece of bread. As Nok said, "We can't eat these fish since they're in front of a Buddhist temple. So these fish stay here since they know that." Smart fish!
That was it for touring! Off to MBK center and it is a crazy house of shopping there. It reminded me of the Hong Kong markets except 100 times bigger! We lasted 2 hours before we both got shopped out and were ready to return to the hotel. But not before we got another taste of Thai food: spicy fried rice noodles with chicken and rice noodles with soup (octopus, tofu, veggies, squid). And it was 80 baht total ($3 US). And we found DONUTS in Thailand! The store is called "Mr. Donut" and they were yummy: old-fashioned with chocolate and almonds and a Bavarian cream-filled donut. They were good enough to convince us to buy a box of chocolate-filled donuts for Nok since today was her birthday and she didn't tell us until our tour was almost at the end. We'll surprise her with them tomorrow since it'll be our last day with her. =( She won't be continuing on with us to Chiang Mai after we tour Ayutthaya with her.
The taxi ride back to the hotel... ack, we almost got into a fender-bender!! So close that the taxi driver even screamed, "EEEEEeee- Waahhhh!" Not a good sign and definitely a scary moment for us passengers! But we made it back safely enough. We are definitely not going to miss the traffic and taxis of Bangkok!
So tomorrow we'll visit the ancient capital of Ayutthaya and then take an overnight train to Chiang Mai. Hopefully we'll have Internet access there!
Days without food poisoning: still 2!!
Oh yeah, days with Felicia feeling like she's rocking on a ship (like in Australia): 2 (this sucks!)
