Today we spent the day in downtown Bangkok. I had booked a tour for 10 of us from Brandon University. A van was to pick us up at the apartments at 8:00am, but when we got down there the van wasn’t there! I phoned the lady a couple of times to give her directions, but she still couldn’t find us. She then phoned me and said that they were at Lertlah (our school) so we told them to stay put and ran to the school!
The first thing we did was go to the Grand Palace. At the Grand Palace there were a lot of temples and statues. The detailing on the temples was amazing. It was very sparkly and made up of tiny jewels and some were even made of gold! The Grand Palace itself was a massive white building with beautiful detailing on the roof and points of the roof. There were perfectly trimmed trees in the front courtyard and there were guards around the building. It is a sacred building so we weren’t allowed to go in.
Because religion and tradition are so important to the Thai people, women must have their shoulders and knees covered when they go to any temple. This rule also applied for the Grand Palace. The girls and I thought we could wear capris, but when we met up with our tour guide she said we MUST wear pants. The only pants I have here are my lulu lemon sweatpants, and they were HOT! We just put our collared white school shirts over our tank tops whenever we got close to a temple or the palace. I’m SO glad we can wear shorts and tank tops everywhere else! The reason that you have to cover these parts of your bodies is because sometimes there are monks in the temples. The monks cannot have anything to do with women, we can’t even make eye contact with them. If a monk sees too much flesh on a woman they can become tempted, and this is the woman’s fault for not dressing appropriately.
On the same grounds as the Grand Palace we saw the Emerald Buddha (Wat Prah Kaew). We were all expecting a huge Buddha statue, but it was just very small! It was on top of a very detailed pyramid type of structure. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of it when we got in the temple, but our tour guide showed us where we could stand outside to take a decent picture of it.
We then drove about 5 minutes to the Reclining Buddha (Wat Po). This Buddha was 46 meters long. It was HUGE! We went into a building where there was a small hallway surrounding the Buddha, and we just walked around it, took pictures and then went on our way. After the Reclining Buddha we took a boat across the river to the Temple of the Dawn (Wat Arun). This temple was approximately 66 meters tall! The tour guide gave us time to climb to the top of it. Jill & I went to the first level and were too exhausted to go any further! A couple of girls climbed to the top.
We waited for everyone to come down and then went on a long-tailed boat down the river for about an hour. While we were on the boat we saw a HUGE dragon-looking thing that lived in the water. My friend thought it was a Komodo Dragon? I don’t know what the heck it was, but it was awful. As soon as she said “Komodo Dragon” I immediately thought of my friend Shawn Hersack. Maybe they do really exist, Shawwwwwn! Needless to say, we will definitely NOT be going swimming in the river, EVER! While we were going down the river we saw parts of the floating market. Thai people load up their boats with souvenirs, fruits, vegetables, barbequed foods, and anything you could imagine to sell to other people in boats or to people who live around the river. It was really neat to see how different their way of life is. Our tour guide also gave us bread to feed the fish. When we threw the bread in the water hundreds of fish came to the surface! We then saw kids going swimming in the river... yuck!
At the end of our boat ride we went to a restaurant on the river for lunch. Lunch was included in the price we paid for our tour. Which, by the way, was only 1450 baht ($48) for a full day tour! The lunch was a delicious buffet including both Thai and Canadian food. While we were eating lunch one of the girls pointed out that we could see the hotel that is in the Hangover 2! It was pretty cool, I’m excited to see the movie and say that I have been to some of the places in the movie!
After lunch we went to a Gems Gallery, one of the largest jewellery stores in the world! They had some amazing jewellery. We looked around for a while admiring the jewels and then relaxed for a few minutes in a coffee shop.
Once we were done at the jewellery store we got dropped off at Koh San Road! Koh San Road is a street in downtown Bangkok where all of the backpackers go to shop and party. When we first got there we tried to shop but we were overwhelmed by all of the shops and things we wanted to buy, so we decided to go for foot massages! It was nice to sit, relax, and get our feet rubbed after a long day of walking. After our massages we met up with the girls from BU for supper. We sat and visited for a while and had supper. I had a delicious banana milk shake thing, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since!
After supper we made a second attempt at shopping. It went MUCH better this time! Tori wasn’t in a shopping mood, so her and our friend Taylor went and got another foot massage. Jill and I, on the other hand, shopped till we dropped! I got quite a few gifts for people back home and a ton of summer clothes by myself! I was feeling guilty for how much I bought but then Jill reminded me, “Steph we’re in Thailand... we will probably never be here again!” And that’s all it took to solve my buyers remorse issues! Haha.Once we decided we had spent enough money we met up with Tori and Taylor and caught a taxi back to the apartments. We got home around 10:30. When we got home I tidied up the apartment a little bit and wrote Amanda a note as she would arrive at the apartments while we were downtown the next day. It was like Christmas Eve, I was so excited for her to come! I was like a little kid who couldn’t wait to open presents!
Sunday, May 29
Goooooood morning, good morning, it’s 6 in the morning, it’s time to go SHOPPING! We woke up at 6:00 this morning to go to Catuchak, the biggest weekend market in Thailand! People at the school recommended that we go very early before it got to hot outside and too busy in the afternoon. At 7:45 we met up with 6 other girls from BU in front of our apartments and caught a taxi to the sky train. We then took two sky trains and walked for about five minutes until we arrived at Catuchak! There is no way to explain this market other than a gigantic maze. We thought we had it figured out as we walked down each street, but from each street was a hallway, and from each hallway was another hallway, all filled with little shops. We tried to navigate around the best that we could but we would somehow always end up somewhere that we had already been! It was so confusing that none of us felt like shopping. Another thing that wasn’t very good was that the vendors did not go down in their prices very much when we tried to barter. I only bought one souvenir and a camera case. At 11:30 we met up with the group again and decided to go to MBK (the 7 story mall) to have lunch and look around. Around 2:30 we caught the sky train back to the main station and took a taxi back to our apartments.Amanda landed at the airport shortly after 12:00pm, so we knew she would be at the apartments when we got back! As we paid the cab driver Tori saw Amanda walking down the street! We all ran out of the taxi and took turns hugging her! I cried, of course. It was like a little piece of home had just arrived J We went back to the apartment to drop off our bags and she filled us in on how Geordie proposed to her! Oh yeah, let me fill you in... she went with her boyfriend and his family for three weeks when we came to Thailand, and while they were there they got engaged! We then showed her around the little community (the school, restaurants, 7-11, etc.). She was feeling stiff and swollen from the plane ride, so of course we suggested going for a massage! Amanda and Jill got foot massages while Tori got a Thai back massage. I just hung out... I don’t want to overdo it! Tori was only separated from us by a small curtain and we could see her clearly. It was so funny to watch her get a massage. For those of you who don’t know, the purpose of a Thai massage is to crack your bones! Everyone says it’s something you have to do, but I’m not interested! We then had supper at Old Bar and went back to the apartments.
Amanda unpacked while I showed her everything that I had bought so far... which by the way, is way more than I thought I had bought! Oops! “When in Thailand!” Once she was done unpacking we both tried to Skype home (which sucks by the way). It cuts out so much... but I guess we will take what we can get to contact our family, friends and boyfriends. We were both exhausted so went to bed early. It was weird to sleep in my own bedroom (since I had been staying with Tori & Jill for the past 3 weeks), but it was nice to have some space and privacy!
Did I mention how excited I am that Amanda is here?! Bring it on, Thailand... we’re ready for anything!
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