We had breakfast, freshened up and made a plan for the day. We filled up my camelback (a water container stored in a type of rucksack) and headed off through Khao San Road which is a market area full of stalls selling bags, clothes, food and there was even a boots pharmacy there. I bartered for a mini calculator which I thought would be quite handy to have and got the price down from 300TB = £5 to 100TB = £1.66.
Somebody had suggested we go to MBK which is a large indoor shopping area which is in the city centre so we went to find it. On our way we passed the Royal Grand Palace, we had numerous people approach us to say we could not go in with what we were wearing as you are meant to have your knees and ankles covered and your shoulders, fortunately we were already aware of this as Lizzie (our friend come travel advisor) had informed us of this. We walked past the Palace through various market stalls and got to the river. We had been advised by a travel guide at the hotel what sort of prices we should look to pay for boats and tuk tuk’s and this advice was invaluable as we found out.
We approached a desk which seemed to be selling tickets for boats and they gave us a price of 400TB each, the travel advisor had told us it should only cost us a maximum of 30TB each so we quickly said no but were confused as to why the price was so steep. The lady trying to sell us the ticket asked why we didn’t want it so I informed her that we knew the price should only be 30TB so she was very honest with us and helpful and told us and pointed us in the direction of where the local boats were as opposed to the boat cruise they were selling.
We boarded the boat and enjoyed the ride along the river. After 25 mins on the boat we arrived at the Skytrain terminal, this is a train service that runs above the city like a monorail. The Skytrain took us to the MBK.
The MBK was massive, 7 stories of shops and also market like stalls. They had one level just one restaurant’s, another one for just electronic goods and another one just for souvenir stalls. I managed to barter and buy a 1Gb micro SD card for £4 for my mobile.
After grabbing some lunch in the MBK, we headed back to the river and grabbed another boat to take us to the Golden Mount. When we go off the boat a man approached us and told us that this was closed until 5:30pm as the monks were praying, but we should go and see the Standing Buddha. So we checked our map (every time we got our map out we were bombarded with offers to take us places in taxis and tuk-tuks). A tuk-tuk driver approached us and offered to take us to the Standing Buddha, Lucky Buddha and the Marble Temple for just 20TB (about 33p) this sounded like a bargain so we asked him what the catch was, he told us that today was the last day of a government scheme where souvenir shops gave fuel coupons to tuk-tuk drivers if they bring customers to their shops. We didn’t mind going to various shops so off we went and started with the Standing Buddha. As we arrived we could see a massive golden statue, it stood 32 metres tall. We wandered around the site and then continued onto the Lucky Buddha which is a temple. The decoration of the temple was amazing, bright gold mixed with greens, oranges, reds, all colours. We got chatting to a Thai man who was a banker and had lived in America for a few years. We noticed there were small boxes with people’s pictures on them around the temple site. He explained that the building opposite was a crematorium and Thai families would keep the ashes in these boxes as opposed to having gravestones.
After this to help Anan our tuk tuk driver get some gas coupons we allowed him to take us to a tailor’s that specialised in suits and shirts. The store was very modern and there was a factory behind it. We found out that the suits made at most of the tailors in Thailand are exported and are sold as designer suits ie Armani, Hugo Boss etc. As tempting as it was to buy one because of the price Adam did not have the luggage capacity however he did order a handmade tailored shirt which we designed and cost only £15, we were guaranteed delivery of the shirt to our hotel by 3pm the following day.
We then continued onto the Marble Temple. There we paid the admittance fee and were approached by a man who said for a small amount he would be our guide, we agreed and he started to show us around. He was quite funny but very difficult to understand. He was an ex-boxer (he showed us an old picture of himself in his boxing gear) and had been guiding people around the Temple for over 30 years. He was 63 years old. He explained how there was a Buddha for every week of the year and we even stopped to talk to a monk for a little while. We saw where the monks lived and where they prayed.
From here Anan took us to a local jewellery and souvenir shop. We saw workers making up pieces of jewellery; their handicraft was very precise and detailed. There were rubies, emeralds, sapphires every sort of precious stone imaginable but unfortunately the price of these items was a little more than what we could afford.
After a long day of sightseeing we were very tired and our last stop was our hotel. Anan drove us to the hotel (have to just mention that sitting in the back of a tuk tuk is an experience in itself as they are crazy drivers) where we said goodbye to him and wished him luck for his wedding next year – it’s amazing how much you can learn about someone when you have been with them for a whole day!
In the evening I unfortunately started to suffer from heatstroke and had an awful migraine, Adam went to dinner whilst I slept. When he came back upstairs he looked after me as I started being sick and so we just relaxed in our room. I will make sure I wear a hat tomorrow!
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