SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2016
We woke up a little later than the previous day and left the hostel around 9am. Breakfast was toast again and we took a bus to the democracy monument, with the intention on doing a walking tour that was suggested in Tracy’s Lonely Planet book.
5 minutes later, a man comes up and starts talking to us. He asks us where we’ve been and so on. He then writes down a list of places we should go. We learned from that man that we should take the yellow and blue tuk tuks because those are government licensed and they won’t charge you an outrageous price.
Then a government tuk tuk appeared, what seemed like out of thin air. This kind man told the driver that we want to go to these five places and we pay 40 baht for the entire day. Sounds good to me.
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| Our first tuk tuk ride in Thailand 🙂 |
So, we get into this tuk-tuk and he brings us to the first stop to see this thousand year old Buddha. We met a kind man there who told us that we can touch the Buddha’s knee for good luck and happiness.
Afterwards, we get back into the tuk-tuk and he takes us to a “fashion store.” Similar to yesterday, the fashion store was a custom suit shop. I walk in thinking that it’ll be different from the day before; however, it was another suit shop. We’re seated and looking through their catalog. They ask us some questions and then 5 min later asks us to leave his shop. Yes, that was awkward. I guess he could sense that we weren’t interested as well.
We hop back on the tuk-tuk and the driver takes us to the marble temple. It was beautiful!
The temple was built using marble imported from Italy. There was a very small entrance fee.
I just loved the design. The architecture of these temples are very unique and distinguished in my opinion. My favorite was the entrance door to the temple.
Inside the temple contained 55 Buddha statues. Each one slightly different in pose. The floor was beautiful with the temple slightly reflecting from the floor.
There was one section of the temple that had a beautiful Buddha statue inside. You will need to take you shoes off.
After walking around a bit, we get back into the tuk-tuk and the driver tells us that he is going to take us to another fashion shop. We told him we didn’t really want to go to another one. He said, “you walk around 15-20 min and I get gas coupon.” Once we understood, we said okay. He drove us around all day for only 40 baht. Yeah, I can help a guy out and get him free gas.
He drives us to a fashion shop and it’s the exact same one we went to the day before. Everyone in there was accusing us, “you were in here yesterday!” They even remembered what we wore the day before. I’m not exactly sure how the gas coupon works, but we told them we wanted to see the gift shop again. So, I played the “let me touch everything” game. I inquired about prices even though I knew I wasn’t actually interested in buying the item. We did that for about 20 minutes.
We got back into the tuk-tuk and said he was going to take us to a gem store because he needed two coupons. We were there for another 20 min and didn’t buy anything.
The driver then drives us to another temple. He says this is as far as he goes. We pay him and go look for lunch.
Depending on how frugal you are, that might seem like a good deal. Personally, after the second suit shop, I was tired. I don’t know if I’d do it again. I suppose it depends on how much the tuk tuk driver was going to charge.
At this point, we are standing in front of the Royal Pavilion Mahajetsadabadin. We’re starving and were able to find some Pad See Ew around the corner. It’s so healthy, but I love food stands. I think I’d rather get my food from a food stand than a sit down restaurant sometimes.
After our stomach’s were satisfied, we explored Wat Ratchanatdaram. I was surprised at how much I liked the design and the look of this temple. The view was a little ruined by the scaffolding around the top, but from what I could see, it was beautiful. The temple is also known as Loha Prasat, so let’s go with that instead, because it’s easier to spell. Admission is free. Inside there were several buddhas and meditation techniques posted. I was tired and decided not to go to the top floor, but the idea is that the higher you go, the closer you are to nirvana.
From there, we took a boat ride, one of Bangkok’s many modes of transportation and went back to our hostel to grab our things.
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| our first boat ride in thailand |
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| boat ticket |
Next stop: Cambodia. We took a bus halfway to DOM airport and took a taxi the second half. The buses are actually quite comfortable. No motion sickness for Tina, yay! We flew with AirAsia. There’s not a lot of leg room, but it was a plane and it served it’s purpose. The flight was short and we actually landed early, which I won’t complain about. The turbulence was terrible! I felt my stomach drop a couple times and I honestly thought I don’t know if I’ll be able to get through the next 30 minutes of this flight if it was going to be this way. The plan was jerking hard, least to say it was uncomfortable.
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| dinner at airport |
Side note: All the people on the plane going to Cambodia were foreigners, from what I saw. I know if plane rides are considered expensive for Thai people. Maybe because Cambodia is so close, Thai people don’t venture to Cambodia often? There weren’t any Cambodians on the plane either, which shouldn’t surprise me considering they earn $1 USD for a 12 hour workday.
Unfortunately, my nose started bleeding as the plane was literally descending. Pressing the service button did not do much as the flight attendants can’t get up during landing to give me a tissue. The lady in front of me was very nice to give me a tissue and I got lots of paper towel from the flight crew as I made my way off the plane. Although having a nose bleed as I go through Cambodian customs is not ideal. Tracy and I both got e-Visas, which I recommend doing because it’ll save you time and you don’t have to wait in a long line with other people to get a visa.
Tory and Rebecca were super nice and ordered us a car (the same car that took them to the hostel). He had a sign that said our names on it too! For a private, air conditioned car, he charged us $7.50 USD (A little more than $3 USD per person? I’ll live haha)
Tracy went to explore the night market and I took a shower and got ready for bed. 🙂
Glad to see we finally made it to Thailand over here! 😛 No worries…I'm still plugging away as well…luckily I'm getting to our lazier days haha