The past two days have been pretty low-key, I had so much to
squeeze into such a short period in Japan that I was constantly on the go and a
week is more than enough time to see Bangkok so I haven’t been in a rush to get
things done. Plus my hostel isn’t in the greatest location when it comes to
accessing tourist attractions.
I wasn’t feeling overly motivated when I woke up on
Wednesday morning but I knew I needed to go out for at least a little while and
do some exploring. I decided to take the sky-train to Siam because when I
switched trains there the day before heaps of people were getting on and off
the train so I figured there must be something there worth seeing. It turns out
the main attraction is a large shopping mall which worked well for me since I
was starving. I wandered around the food court for a while before finally
settling on McDonalds (judge me if you must but all the other options were
serving lunch and I wanted breakfast).
Once I had some food in my belly I decided to go for a bit
of a wander and see if there was anything else of interest besides the mall.
This was when I discovered the marvelous skywalk, a walkway that runs parallel
to the sky-train and is well above the traffic, a blessing since trying to
cross the street in Bangkok is a life endangering experience.
I walked a short ways on the skywalk before discovering a
temple; I took out my camera to start snapping some pictures only to discover
that the battery was dead. I walked a little further before deciding to head
back to the hostel to recharge the camera battery and my own. It was barely
noon and I was already exhausted.
I lounged around for a few hours before deciding to head
back out. I decided to return to the same part of town I visited earlier in the
day and actually get some pictures, but not without stopping for ice-cream
first. DQ chocolate dipped cone in hand I made my way to the temple I found
earlier, it was closing for the day so I wasn’t able to go inside but I got a
few pictures of the outside before moving on. I wandered further than I had in
the morning and found that the whole area seemed to be a series of temples,
shrines, and shopping centres.
I got off the skywalk for a while and wandered around on
checking out some of the street vendors. There was a large array of goods for
sale mostly clothing and food but there were a few odd stalls in the mix as
well. Nothing really jumped out at me but was later told that the best street
markets are in a different part of town.
After a few hours of wandering aimlessly in the ridiculous
heat (39 degrees according to an LED display on one of the buildings I walked
past) I was ready to call it a day so I headed back to the hostel. I wanted to
try to make some new friends but this hostel doesn’t really have a central
common room or planned activities to make meeting people easy. I sat downstairs
in the lobby area where after a period of sitting and watching the people
around me, most of whom seemed to be travelling in pairs or groups, I met
Hayden, a law student from New Zealand. We chatted for a while and had dinner
together at the hostel restaurant before he headed off to meet some friends who
were staying in a different hostel and I headed to bed.
Today I woke up planning to get a day pass for the sky-train
and exploring the area around as many of the stops as I could. Not the most
exciting of plans but it was a plan. I headed downstairs to wake up a little
and to check out the tours desk and that’s when I met Nathan. I don’t even
remember how we started talking but soon my sky-train plan had gone out the
window and I was going to go with Nathan to visit the palace.
We took a while to actually leave the building, I had to
book a trip to the tiger temple for tomorrow and he needed to check some things
out online but eventually we were on our way. We walked following the sky-train
line to the next station which is where the central pier is located.
Unfortunately there was no skywalk headed in that direction and I was forced to
risk my life several times during the short walk. Once we got to the pier we
boarded a boat, I had no idea where we were going but was up for the adventure.
The boat ride offered an interesting perspective on the different economic
classes in Bangkok, one side of the river appeared wealthy and the other stricken
with poverty. The contrast between the
two was a little alarming.
We eventually reached our stop and we were off to the
palace. I has heard that you needed to wear long pants and a long sleeve shirt
to visit the palace but if you showed up wearing inappropriate clothing you
could rent a sari to make yourself respectable. What I didn’t know was that it
would cost 200baht for each article borrowed (turns out it wasn’t a sari it was
separate top and bottom) and it was an additional 500baht to actually enter the
palace. Being the cheapskate that I am I decided to pass on the castle but
Nathan was still keen so we went our separate ways.
I some how managed to sneak onto the palace grounds in my
shorts and t-shirt and took a few pictures and decided to leave before getting
in trouble. I spent an hour or two walking around the area where the palace was
before deciding to head back to the hostel. I'm sure there was more to see in
this part of town but I had no idea what or where and I was hot and exhausted
so I figured it was best just to call it a day.
I caught the boat back to central pier and walked the death-defying
route back to the hostel. I considered heading out again but I figured I have a
long day ahead of me tomorrow so it would be okay to just chill for the rest of
the day, plus sunset wasn’t too far off by this point anyway.
I should probably go get some sleep, I have to be on a bus
at 6:30 tomorrow, a little rough especially since I’m not a morning person but I
get to ride an elephant, go bamboo rafting, and hang out with some tigers so it
should be worth it!
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