FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2016
In case you missed Day 1, check it out here.
The tour we signed up for started at 9am and is suppose to go til 12pm. The tour company, sent a tour guide, Ming, who showed up an hour earlier and waited in the lobby.
The tour was comfortable, riding in an air conditioned private car with a driver and guide. However, the tour was suppose to be of the grand palace, so I wasn’t expecting the driver to do much.
Tracy and I arrive at the grand palace entrance and there were tons of people! I couldn’t think of a U.S attraction that had that many tourists. But then again, I think the space was smaller, so the same amount of people could have made the place seem more crowded.
Tracy was wearing a dress. The dress covered her shoulders but didn’t hug her arm. Her knees were not covered either. So, we went to a shop right in front of the grand palace. The lady there, kept pulling down the “sleeve” of Tracy’s dress, but it was nearly coming off her shoulders. Tracy also had to rent a wrap around skirt for 30 baht. You give them 100 baht as deposit and when you return, you get 70 baht back.
If you’re going to the grand palace, definitely take into consideration the outfit you wear there. Shoulders and knees need to be covered and no opened toed shoes.
The price of admission for the grand palace was 500 baht per person. Walking in, there is a huge green space and you’ll see lots of tour groups taking pictures. The line to buy admission tickets looked to be about 30 min long, but we just gave our tour guide the money and he returned 5 min later with tickets.
This is the part where I tell you how not great our tour guide was.
His accent was heavy to me. Tracy understood almost all of what he said and Tracy would just repeat it to me if I couldn’t understand it which was a lot.
He also didn’t tell us much. We would ask questions and he would answer them but he wasn’t very helpful.
The buildings were beautiful! There was a lot of gold. A lot! But I like that color. There was people everywhere. I saw Europeans and a lot of China tour groups.
You have to take your shoes off before entering the building that holds the emerald Buddha. Photography was not allowed inside so unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the emerald Buddha. But I can tell you that this emerald Buddha was sitting on what looked like a really tall pyramid.
It was interesting to see the architecture and see where the former kings and queens lived/made use of the different rooms.
While walking around on the palace grounds, we came across students in uniform probably around 12 years old. They had these surveys in English and they went around talking to foreigners. They asked about 8 multiple questions in English and then at the end, they ask you how was their English. (Very good!) They then had us sign to prove they talked to us 🙂 It’s all about the proof.
We ended at about 10:30am because Ming didn’t really have much to say. He then vaguely told us that he was going to bring us to other places.
He ended up bringing us to a gemstone/jewelry place. We learned quickly that he got commission by bringing us there. We are two girls in our 20s. We weren’t about to go and buy $84 USD jewelry.
Ming then told us he was going to take us to another place. It ended up being a custom suit shop. No, thanks. We walked around their souvenir shop and I bought a coin purse for maybe $1? It’s been two days and I already forgot the price. By the time we ended, it was 12pm. They were going to drive us back to our hostel. About 5 min from our hostel, they drove through a day market. It was lunch time, so we told them to just drop us off there.
Day Market / Clothes
We got out of the car and quickly found a food stand that sold meet and rice. It was quite tasty and only 30 baht.
We found some steps to sit on and ate our lunch. As we were walking around browsing clothes stands, we found a stand with very cute dresses. Tracy and I each bought one each for 225 baht.
We wandered around for a while. It was like a maze of stands selling clothes and bags. Every street we turned into, there would be a vendor. I ended up buying this really cute red maxi skirt. I resisted buying two and only allowed myself to buy one for 200 baht.
We found the sky tower and ducked inside to find a bathroom. While we were there, we found a stand that sold SIM cards. We bit the bullet, split the cost, bought a SIM card, and put it in Tracy’s phone.
We figured we needed data to find our way around the city, especially since we were exploring by ourselves. Once we got data, we found our way back to the hostel and rested for an hour.
4:00pm – Chinatown
We left the hostel and took the bus to Chinatown. We walked around a bit and tried to find food, but was somewhat unsuccessful. From there, we walked to the “Giant Swing.” I’m not exactly sure what the significance of the attraction was, but we did find a light show? There were just a lot of lights.
At this festival, they had performances that amazed me. It was cool to see a human totem pole.
Pad Thai in Thailand
We walked about 5 minutes to a restaurant called Thipsamai. The line was fairly long and consisted mostly of foreigners. The line ended up being longer than what we waited for but the line also moved quickly. The menu was not extensive so people ordered fairly quickly. Their most popular dish was pad Thai for 90 baht.
We also met up with a high school friend of Tracy’s. She was an exchange student from Thailand at Tracy’s high school. She happened to be in Bangkok and we were lucky to meet up with her.
Then, we went to an outdoor mall-ish place called Asiatique. It was a little bit more upscale than the local shops you see, but it was nice. We all shared a five scoop ice cream dish that was so delicious!!
Then, they drove us to a popular club scene in Bangkok. The area is called Khaosan Road. It is absolutely hopping there! If you are looking for nightlife, this is it. I think it caters to mostly foreigners. I’ve never seen so many foreigners in one place in Bangkok. There’s lots of bars, music, and dancing. At one point we walked past one bar, where all the people were just dancing on the street.
Before we headed home, Tracy’s friend was very nice and bought us a box of mango and sticky rice. It’s a Thailand dessert, where they drizzle coconut milk/cream over fresh mango and sticky rice and eat it together. I highly recommend trying it if you’re ever in Thailand.
Shortly after arriving back at the hostel, we passed out to 23 degree Celsius air conditioning. 🙂
Steps walked: 18,039
