this is a continuation of the 11th day of our trip. our flight from hong kong provided another veggie meal, thanks to hyunjoo, so i was quite satisfied when we arrived at the airport a little be before dusk. that feeling didn't last for very long, as the cab driver snatched the meter ticket out of daniel's hand and mumble something about the cost to khao san in bangkok. i realized that he was trying to rip us off by quoting a price and not using the meter. i tried to say something to him about using the meter, but he pretended to not speak english/just ignored me. i was getting pretty fucking pissed as i thought about it and realized that what the price he said was and knew that it was probably double the cost of what the meter would be for the distance we were going. the day before was the precious thai king's birthday and all this guy could say was 'brday king. brday king'. unfortunately we only had large bills when we arrived at our destination, if i would have had exact change i would have paid him roughly what the meter would have been and left, but i couldn't.
we got a room at the fist guest house we came to, rambuttri village, which was leaps and bounds nicer and more spacious than what we had had in hong kong.
we found some thai food and delicious chang beer in a restaurant down the street from our guest house.
by this point i was already tired of seeing 'brday king' on everything.
i woke up still quite drunk the next morning and went to find an internet connection, as we were trying to connect with someone my dad knows that is an english teacher somewhere in bangkok. this is the point when i found out that my great aunt martha had passed away. i think this made thailand a very different experience for me.
after getting daniel up, we made our way to the big tourist attractions of bangkok.
first it was the wat phra kaew, the big temple near the king's house.
there was an overly strict no photo policy in the main room. some guy had his camera confiscated, he asked if they could simply delete the photo that he took in there, but it didn't seem like they were going to give his camera back at all. it's such a lame policy, as you can stand just outside the room and take all the damn photos you want of the inside with your zoom.
with the exception of the ginormous mural that went around every interior wall in the entire complex, i began to feel that this place was full of nothing but grossly ornate, glittery, gaudy things, i'm talking like there was a bedazzler attack. as i said though, the murals were something else.
what do you know about duck people?
there was scale model of angkor wat in cambodia.
this is the grand palace, you know where 'brday king' lives.
after leaving 'brday king's' bedazzled mess, all we seemed to see was filth and homeless people. these two guys had it a bit better than the rest.
after catching a late lunch and relaxing for a few hours, we found another restaurant near our guest house for dinner and beer. i never got a photo of him, but we had what thai people refer to as a 'lady-boy' for a waiter/waitress/server.
this taxi pulled up and tried to sell us everything from rafting trips and hookers to a great price for a ride to cambodia and elephant sex.
after our second night and no luck making the connection with the teacher, we decided that we had overstayed bangkok, checked out of the guest house and booked a night train chiang mai in northern thailand. we left our packs with the travel agency, got some fresh made fruit smoothies on khao san, and headed toward the big buddha.
on the way the ritz was showing a turner movie classic.
filth is all i have to say about the canals, though this canal doesn't look too bad compared to most.
as we were approaching the outside wall of the big buddha this tuk tuk driver told us it was closed for a few hours while 'brday king' had some kind of private ceremony. we told him no thanks, we'll go see for ourselves. as we are walking away, some guy walks up and says the exact same thing and that he was in the military, so he knew. he flagged down the tuk tuk driver as he was driving away and proceeded to make a list of three things for us to do until it opened again on a piece of paper. first to some little of the map temple, then to a suit shop, then to the fat smiling buddha temple, then back to the big buddha. we told him that we didn't have time for all that shit and that we didn't want to go to the suit shop, but he insisted all we had to do was walk in. the whole time he was instructing the driver to do all of this for x price. we decided to do it, but on the way to the first temple i busted the guide book out, which said it was all a scam. after walking around the first little temple, i told the driver that he was not to take us to the suit shop and his response was that if he doesn't take us, he can't get a gas coupon. i told him i didn't care about his gas coupon take us to the other temple. he said no, you walk. i said fine. he never got paid anything, so he's the one who lost out.
yeah, we didn't get to see the big buddha, but we were pressed for time anyway, as we had to get back to our packs, then to the train station. finding where we were in bangkok took a little walking, until we found this mountain temple. we never would have seen this if it hadn't been for bangkok's scam artists, so it was cool.
the first cab driver told us he'd take us to the train station for 300 baht, which is like $9. i asked him to use the meter, he refused, so we continued looking. the second one said 200 baht. once again, i asked for the meter and he refused. the third one quoted 100 baht and we took it. estimating distance and meter fare in bumber to bumper traffic, we probably would have paid 90, so we were only out 30 cents.
on the way we got to see a bit of the mass production of idols and deities.
we had to wait around the train station for maybe an hour before boarding.
we paid for a meal and some beer, but there was a lights out curfew, though the lights never went out. we were the only ones up drinking, a french guy whose bunk was across from ours that couldn't sleep came over and had beer with us until they made us go to bed.
we think that really the lady who made the beds just wanted to go to sleep that's why we had to pack up. not much sleep as the a/c was set to freezing cold, which i'm not used to (i didn't use my a/c at all in korea), also simply because it was a train.
i'm sure there are some great things in bangkok, but i thought it was a shit hole and not a place i really have any desire to see again anytime soon.
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