Bangkok Day 6: We Should Have Gotten Off At The Palace

Today was another fun filled day in Bangkok. It even included a few familiar faces, which is always nice when you’re travelling solo. I headed downstairs first thing and waited for my for my friend who had flown in during the wee hours of the morning to wake up and join me. I figured I would be waiting for at least a few hours as he sent me a message saying he got in much later than expected and really needed sleep so I was surprised when he showed up about 15 minutes later.

I met Sasha at a birthday party for a mutual friend when I was living in Canmore and haven’t seen him in a few years. He is currently teaching English in Korea and posted on Facebook that he would be visiting Thailand for a holiday so I suggested we meet up and I’m glad I did.

We spent a good chunk of the morning wandering around the Silom area of town looking for food. Although it’s just around the corner from the hostel I hadn’t been there yet but heard it was quite good. I must have heard wrong, or the person who told me that doesn’t know what good mean, but we wandered for a while before finding a questionable restaurant.  The restaurant had two different menus, one for food the other for massage treatment. I decided to pass on the opportunity to eat while Sasha enjoyed some Pad Thai. I had a bite (yes that’s right, I tried a new food!) and I actually enjoyed it.

From there we made our way back to the hostel. Sasha needed to look into trains to Chiang Mai and I needed to do something as well although I cant recall what it was right now. Sasha was still hungry and my tummy was starting to rumble so we both grabbed something to eat and headed out again.

Sasha had been told there was a giant Buddha in Bangkok and wanted to check it out. I googled it and there were a few options and we ended up deciding on the largest solid gold Buddha, which is also allegedly the largest solid gold statue in the world. The temple containing the statue was in China town so we made our way down to the pier and caught the ferry. We seemed to get a little lost after that and took way longer than we should have to find the temple but eventually we made it.

The temple itself was pretty ornate with gold accents all over the place. The Buddha wasn’t as big as I thought it was going to be so I felt a little disappointed. I read online that it was 15 feet tall but it is actually quite a bit shorter than that. Still pretty impressive though weighing in at 5.5 tonnes and estimated to be worth roughly $250 million.  Sasha had just spent a week at a temple in Korea so he was a little more interested in the spiritual side of things so while he did his thing I just sat off to the side and observed my the people around me. I still think its odd that a religion that preaches not to worry about material goods has temples and statues full of gold and plan on doing some research on that topic.

Beneath the temple there was a museum exhibit. We weren’t really sure what sort of exhibit we were walking into but it ended up being interesting, confusing but interesting. it was all about how the statue had been made and how it was discovered that it was made of solid gold as it had previously been inside a casing hiding the gold. I’m pretty sure the person responsible for the exhibit is not fluent in English because a lot of it didn’t make sense. We weren’t even sure until the very end if the statue was actually solid gold or if it was just cow dung covered in gold.

From there were made our way to the train station so Sasha could purchase his tickets for his Chiang Mai adventure. The plan from here was to head back to the hostel for a rest and some food and then hit up the night markets a few hours later but of course that didn’t work out quite the way we expected it to. In fact this is where the real fun starts.

We made our way to the pier and while we patiently waited for our boat I asked a couple who were also waiting for a boat which direction they were going. They were going in the opposite direction but I suggested to Sasha that maybe we should go that way for a few stops so he could see some of the temples along the river before turning around and coming back. He wasn’t to keen on the idea at first but after talking to the couple while we sat on the dock he decided it would be a fun idea.

Everything started out just fine. I was relaxed and enjoying the nice breeze as the ferry chopped its way down the river. We started to approach the palace and I suggested to Sasha that we get off there and head back but he said the man from the couple told him there was only one ferry and suggested we should stay on the boat until it turns around. I thought there were only about 8 more stops so I agreed and we stayed on the boat. BAD IDEA! We should have gotten out at the palace. Turns out there were more than 8 stops left, way more, there were 25 stops left. The boat just keeps going and going and the sun is starting to set and I’m starting to panic. I don’t know if the boats run after dark and I have no idea how we will get home from god knows where if they don’t. I tell Sasha I think we should get off at the next stop but he tells me again that the guy from earlier told him there was only one boat and there is no point in waiting for this same boat to come back. He can see the panic in my eyes so he goes to talk to the lady selling tickets on board who tells him we should stay on until the end. Okay I guess this will just turn around with us on it, we’re not going to be stranded.

Its feels like hours are passing and the boat still hasn’t turned around. Okay so maybe it was only one hour but it felt like forever. Finally the boat reaches the end of the line. Sasha and I stay in our seats thinking the boat will turn around everything will be fine until the driver and ticket lady start yelling at us to get off. Sasha tried to ask the lady how we get back but she just kept saying ‘7’. It was 5:45 were we going to be stuck here for over an hour?

A nice local can see that we’re lost an offers to help, I show her where we want to go on my map and she points us towards another boat. We run full tilt in fear of missing it and end up sitting there for another 10 minutes before finally departing. I’m shaking by this point and fighting back tears, we still aren’t 100% sure this boat is going to get us home. I’m trying to take deep breaths and stay positive but I can’t not until I see something familiar. i just keep repeating 'We should have gotten off at the palace. We should have gotten off at the palace'. Finally we pass the palace and I sigh in relief. Even if the boat stops running for some reason we can take a taxi back to the hostel and it won’t be to expensive. Everything is going to be okay.

We finally make it back to the hostel about 3 hours later than anticipated and both of us are ready to collapse. We make our way to the restaurant and grab some food. By the time we finished eating I was ready for bed but I had to stay awake. Rani and Noalle, the friends I made at the tiger temple were coming for a drink at 9. It was all I could do to stay awake until they got there. I must have caught my second wind because they stayed and chatted for about an hour and I was wide-awake when they left. Not ideal. I need sleep!

We didn’t see a lot today but it was definitely an eventful day. I fly out of Bangkok at 6:30am on Tuesday and while the sensible thing would probably be to stay here and get a taxi in the morning I’ve booked myself a room at the airport hotel. I plan on heading there early tomorrow and spending the day lounging by the pool so I probably won’t be posting anything tomorrow.