After a red-eye flight from Dusseldorf and a stop at our hostel the Shanti Lodge (nice enough), our first stop was to the Grand Palace. We got lost among the alleys, wandered through a market and some pretty desperate neighborhoods in our attempt to find the river ferrys and Lindsey began to wonder what Steve was getting her in to. Her tension peaked when a man emerged from his shack, covered head to toe in buddhist tattoes, and kindly directed us towards the pier. It was a great first impression of the locals. The wander also allowed us a chance to see (and smell) some of those meals best kept to the Travel Channel, which are documented in the pictures (click a pic to get to entire album).
When we arrived at the Palace, we were rejected for innapropriate attire (shorts!) and opted to return another day, rather than wear plastic borrowed pants. Walking across the street, a university student began chatting with us and telling us the lesser known sites to see. He took our map, drew stops on it, then negotiated a price (60 baht / $2) with a tuk-tuk driver for us. He spent well over ten minutes talking with us and we couldn't imagine a New Yorker ever doing the same. The Tuk-Tuk driver was to take us to each stop on the map, and at the final stop we would pay him. This technique (known as "Ro Noy" apparently), was the student's greatest help.
So off we went with the stranger's tour guide to Bangkok. The first stop was at one of Bangkok's scores of Wats, (buddhist monestaries), and we began to get a closer look at the architecture, buddha images, and monks. Next we stopped at a tailor, which (and this has been 3 times corroborated by non tuk-tuk drivers!) was only open to foreigners for one week and generally requires a governemnt ID card. Steve picked up a sports-coat and Lindsey orderd a 60s'-mod coat of Thai silk, which may or may not turn out. Next we stopped at Wat Intharawihan, home the 100ft giant standing buddha (see below), and lastly stopped to walk the stairs of the Golden Mount where we rang the bell three times for good luck. It was a fun couple of hours, and a well spent $2.
At night we headed to see Muay Thai boxing at Lumphini Stadium. We laughed when we saw the actual "stadium", complete with folding chairs and a sheet-metal roof, but couldn't have enjoyed it more. The heavy-weights were 145lbs with zero percent body-fat, but the true stars were the 60-80lbers. The locals are incredibly animated and gamble with each other in the same way wall street pit traders work, pretty funny.
We have so much more to tell you about the rest of Bangkok and promise to get another post out tonight! Also, for those of you that haven't seen all the pictures, click "pictures" on the right hand side of the site to navigate to our complete online album.
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