Fresh Start

After failing as travellers yesterday, we had a couple of main goals for today. First, we wanted to see a few of Bangkoks main tourist attractions, rather than back alley wats, tailor shops, and gem stores. Second, we wanted to get a feel for a few more modes of public transportation. We would not take the easy route and just take a taxi to wherever we wanted to go.

After getting our $.50 breakfast, we headed to a convenience store. . . Okay, we headed to 7/11. . . to get a bus route map. With two thailand guidebooks, and a tourist map, we still felt that we needed another map. All of our maps were, and still are, insufficient in one way or another. Unfortunately, the bus route map would not break this trend. Even though it claimed to be "updated for 2006," it did not include bus stops for skytrain terminals that were built a few years ago. Larissa mentioned in an earlier post that we managed to trade a book on Madagascar for one on Thailand. I don't think she mentioned; however, that our new Lonely Planet Thailand is a photocopied version of the original. It is a beautiful book to look at, the cover is indistinguishable from the original, and photographs within are in high gloss color. After only a cursory perusal, we decided that it would be a good plan to get the book, despite our supporting an illegal practice. Well, don't you worry, we have paid the price. It turns out that while pictures and text come through brilliantly in the copy, the maps are basically useless. You know how you can usually read a description of a restaurant or hotel, and then reference it by number on the map? Well, we can see the numbers on the map, and some road names, but none of the roads are actually visible. Anyway, lets just say that our information gathering is not very efficient at the moment. We try the best we can to combine several sources in such a way so that we can figure out how to get from point A to point B, and whether point B is worth going to in the first place. We decided to make an attempt to take a bus to Wat Pho, which is famous for a gigantic "reclining buddha." As far as we could tell, there were several buses that could take us there. There are several classes of bus service around here. The main difference between the lines are the age of the fleet, and whether the buses had air-conditioning or not. We found that a nice airconditioned did the route that we would be interested in, so we sat down to wait for its arrival. It arrived quite quickly, but never stopped. After watching a few go by, it didn't look like any of them were going to stop. We weren't sure if maybe we were supposed to flag them down or something. After a few sheepish, noncommittal scratch-your-head type waives we decided to broaden our search to include any bus willing to stop, that may be on route to Wat Pho. Just then, an old rickety bus pulled up showing a number of interest. We jumped on in a hurry, the bus never actually stopping. We got about 50ft. before Larissa made a lunge toward the door to jump off the while it was moving. She had realized that she had left her backpack on the bench where we were waiting. Luckily, she thought better of jumping off the bus at speed. Even so, we couldn't get the driver to stop, so we were fortunate that traffic slowed the bus just enough for us to bail, and run back to get the bag. Again, feeling defeated, we sat down on the bench and waited for the next bus. It was not long until a similar bus came along, and slowed just enough for us to get on. $.20 later, and another moving bus exit later, we found ourselves at Wat Pho.

The Wat is beautiful. It is certainly a bigger, more ornate structure than those we were brought to yesterday. We have noticed that the Buddhists are good at making their places of worship very beautiful, without using expensive materials. A closer look at glistening pillars of gold and diamonds reveals broken glass and gold paint. After taking off our shoes, and entering, we were taken back at the size of the buddha. I forget the exact dimensions, but I would guess that sleeping buddha is around 200 feet long. He fills up the entire temple, as there is only a narrow walkway around the perimeter.

From there we walked to the Grand Palace. We had fun playing games with some Tuk-Tuk drivers on the way. Oh, the Grand Palace is closed today? Really, you can take us around the city for 10baht? What a deal. Say, do you suppose you could take us to a tailor shop, and maybe a gem store, and a few no-name wats? Just as the drivers got really excited, we relished in the moment where we dashed their con-artist hopes. Anyway, the Grand Palace shares a compound with the wat of the emerald buddha, and a museum of Thai royal regalia and coins. This is apparently one of the must-see attractions of Bangkok. Unfortunately, the admission fee cost more than our lodging. After some debate over whether we should fork out the cash, Larissa had some feelings regret surface over not taking advantage of similar situations in the past. She reminded me that the whole time she was in Florence, she did not go to the top of the tower next to the duomo (I forget its' name). Nor did she ascend the Eiffel Tower during her time in Paris. She had more examples, but I stopped her short in order to go get our admission tickets. The Palace was truly grand, and the grounds around it beautiful and well manicured. Unfortunately, I did not get a good grasp on the history of the place, so I'll have to leave in dark a bit. While in the coin museum, we were informed of some of the history of the emerald buddha. The things that stand out in my mind is that he is not actually emerald, and the fact that the king changes his clothes in a ceremony commencing the start of each new season. Right now the little green guy is wearing his rainy season outfit which is covered by his winter season cloak. The emerald buddha sits high in a nice Wat within the compound. Picture taking is not allowed in this particular wat. I set the camera on the ground and blindly snapped a few anyway. I'll have to check and see if any are worth posting. Anyway, sorry I am not being more descriptive of what we saw. I will say, in my defense, that it has been a really long day, and I am writing despite my bedtime passing hours ago.

From the palace, we walked to the Chao Phraya river where we planned to experience another mode of public transportation in Bangkok, the riverboat. After narrowly avoiding a couple more scams, we made it on a boat headed for the skytrain station. The boat was way overfilled. Larissa reminded me a couple of times that were it to capsize, we would all be dead for sure. Even so, it was a nice, cheap way to make it accross town. Larissa was excited to make it to the Skytrain station. As she probably mentioned in the previous post, we are staying in the cheapest part of Bangkok at the moment, where the predominating commerce involves bootlegged cd's, cheap trinkets, and yes, prostitution. Before I move on, I would like to mention that it is disturbing to see how prevalent sex tourism is around here. We have seen many an old-white man with a young scantily clad thai girl. Quite sad. Anyway, as much as Larissa excels at roughing it, she likes to make it to the ritzy part of town once in awhile. She requested that we make our first stop Siam square, apparently one of bankok's best shopping areas. After leaving the skytrain (a pleasant ride at a reasonable price), we first happened upon a beautiful bakery. We had many choices before us, but were able to settle on one peach mousse, and one chocolate-banana mousse, both of which we shared. From there we bumped into the nicest grocery store eithier of us had ever seen. While you can get anything there that you can get in America, the store also offered a vast selection of asian foods, and an incredible produce section. We saw apples that could serve a family of four, and starfruits that looked like NFL regulation footballs (slight exaggeration). Even though we looked like the grungy backpackers that we are, we were treated like valuable customers. Much of the fruit was available for sampling. There was also a booth where all sorts of fresh juices were being made. We tried passionfruit, tamarind (sp?), and flower. Yes, flower. Flower juice tastes like the smell of nice-smelling floweres. Then we bumped into a gelateria. I got the passionfruit of course, and Larissa got the cookies and cream. I was disappointed that she got such a common flavor, but I was glad to take a few bites of hers here and there as it reminded me of how good my gelato tasted. The prices around this part of Bangkok are quite high in comparison to other areas. The grocery store was more expensive by a good margin than stores in America. We spent the rest of the afternoon experiencing Bankok's upper-end shopping, without actually buying anything.

We then took the skytrain to a terminal close to a restaurant we wanted to try. We got off the train, and started looking for "The Atlanta" a small budget hotel famous for the wit and character of its' ownere. As usual, we walked around for a long time before finding the place. I still blame the bad maps for our navigation problems.

The Atlanta was to be our second dose of culture today. As we entered the unmarked door, we were impresed with the 50's era decor and nice layout. We were shown to a nice booth, and then were handed a very unique menu. The cover read "Please do not remove this menu, as it is only 1 of 3 in existence." It turns out that the Atlanta menus are famous due to the witty and comprehensive writing style of the owner. The menu is written in a form resembling an academic paper, complete with references and footnotes. The early editions of the menu were often stolen, and used in Thai restaurants around the world. Anyway, it took us about 20 minuttes to read through the menu before actually starting to decide we wanted to order. The menu boasts that the Atlanta has the largest Thai vegetarian selction in the world, over 100 items. These are not just thai dishes with the meat omitted, they are Thai dishes with meat substitutes. Primary among the substitutes used are tofu and quorm. I did not know what quorm was, but I have learned that it is a meat substitute mad from "mushrooms and other edible fungi." The chefs at the Atlanta can make quorm to match the texture of squid, beef, pork, chicken, fish, or just about any other kind of meat. My dish included fried duck. It was delicous. Apparently each night at the Atlanta, guests are invited to watch a movie in the lobby. Larissa was excited about this opportunity, but we decided to duck out early in order to make it home at a semi-reasonable hour.

After another skytrain trip and a short taxi ride, we arrived home with our two main objectives accomplished. Tommorrow morning we are headed to the airport to see if we can get our tickets changed. Then, in the evening we will start our bus jouney to Phuket. We are on a slow internet connection right now. Sorry no pictures.