8.24.09 Grand Palace Finally

So we made our way back the Grand Palace today, not to be sidetracked by tuk-tuk drivers. You basically have to pretend they are not even human

and completely ignore them, because even if you say no, they just keep talking. Even later we helped some other tourists and told them to never go with tuk-tuks and he got offended asking why why?

Our first stop was the Wat Phra Kaeo, which was the King's temple and it also housed the emerald buddha. It was nice, but we had to sneak a picture, so the picture doesn't quite capture it. However the entire temple area surrounding it was quite amazing. It was basically about 10 temples all shoved in next to eachother, so everywhere you turned there was an amazing temple.

Then to the Grand Palace which was grand, but not quite as grand as the temple area. The Emerald Buddha Museum had a ton of buddha statues and some history, but again, no pictures allowed. Then to What Pho which is combined with a school, so the kids playground is some ancieant temple. Jenn played with some cats there. This is where the giant recling Buddha lies. Then off to Wat Arun where it cost 9 cents each to cross the river on a ferry. Also cool with absurdly steep steps to the top. We saw one tubby young white guy with 2 Thai girls who just kind of followed him around. It was kind of funny. Then to the City Pillar which wasn't too spectacular but nice, and at this point our batteries had died in our camera. Off to our dinner cruise on the river, but somehow it could not be found and we ended up just going back home and having some good Thai food across the street from our hostel. Overall a very sight filled day. The Thais know how to build temples.

So the rascism/nationalism at the temples is pretty weird. When you take off your shoes, they have a place for Thais to put their shoes, and a place for foreigners, as if they don't want dirty foreigners touching their shoes or something. Also when entering the grand palace the Thais go in free and foreigners pay, yet they don't show any ID or anything, so it's basically just if your Asian you go in free. If we had known, Jenn would have just walked seperately from me and got in free.

8.23.09 Massage, Cooking Class, and Rooftop Bar

We had another massage today, but this time at a more expensive place ($10 each). Another Thai massage, and we were even more sore after this one. It's almost more of them stretching you than massaging you. This place was much nicer inside with a better atmosphere. From there we went to a 4 hour cooking class where went to a street market to pick out the food and then went back and made a 5 course meal. He also gave us a recipe book. Tom yum kai, pad Thai, chicken salad, green curry paste, green curry, and a water chestnut dessert. It was all quite good. The best tasting pad Thai we've ever had.

Back to the suit place to do another fitting. They were almost perfect this time. They look really good on both of us. Traffic is Thailand is pretty bad, so it's a bit frustrating how long things take some times. However the cab rides are always super cheap and usually $2 and never more than $4. We attempted to go to the snake farm, but it was closed, so then we went back to our hotel for a bit and then off to a rooftop bar. It was a great view. You could see the whole city. Overall a very fun day.

8.22.09 Short day

We had a short day today. We were

hungover from the night before. We took care of erronds like getting train tickets and plannign the rest of our trip.

There were scammers inside the train station as well. And when asking our hotel taxi to drive us to the train station, he attempted to drive us to the travel agency instead.

Then we went to Khoa San road and had a $6 1 hour thai massage. They bruised us, they are quite brutal, but it felt good. When we got out, it was pouring outside and the street was completely flooded about 6" deep. We some some rats run up out of the street and hide under some chairs. We decided to have dinner and wait for the rain to stop. Later we had a drink ata bar at night. Just one drink each though. 6 guys from 4 different bars all ran across the street and swarmed Kyle to get him to come into their bar. They literally were grabbing him to pull him in. We had to yell at them to get them to stop. Short, but fun day.

Also we went back to fit our suit and have them re-stitch some areas.

8.21.09 Temple day and lots of scams

We ate at a charming restaurant with lots of flowers that was walking distance from our hostel. It was good food, pretty cheap. Really good basil chicken and red curry.

We saw temples all day. We went to a temple including a standing Buddha and the Golden Mountain temple which overlooks the city. We also went to a temple and watched some monks chant. It had a large sitting Buddha but we couldn’t take a picture because we didn’t want to interrupt their chanting. They were beautiful and made good use of the color gold. We took a tuk-tuk most of the day, which is a crappy little motorcycle with a passenger carrier in the back. We also bought matching pin stripe suits at a nice tailor establishment.

We had dinner at the hostel which was surprisingly good and made our way to Khao San Road for some drinks. We hung out with some people from Chicago and realized that this city is full of scam artists involved in ridiculously intricate webs of deceit.

In fact, we were the targets of two large scale scams which involved elaborate rings of people posted in various stations throughout the city, trying to get us to buy random things (jewelry, tourist packages, etc.) “Random” people who had come up to us pretending to be helpful with directions had in fact been in cahoots with our tuk-tuk driver and various fraudulent establishments.

The first guy walked out of the grand palace temple, and told us we couldn’t go in because we were not wearing appropriate attire – this much was true; we assumed he was an employee because he walked out of the temple and told us where to borrow free appropriate clothes. Then he said it was closed until 2, so we should come back, but in the mean time he directed us to take a tuk-tuk to see some other sights around the city. These sights were nice, but were also filled with random attempts to direct us to expensive rip-offs. One was supposed to be a government tourism “authority”, which is actually a real place, but they just ripped off the name and no one seems to care about trademark infringement or fraud here. It was actually just a travel agency, but we neglected to purchase and found out later online that the packages they sell are overpriced, fraudulent, and misrepresent what they are selling.

Then upon getting back to where we started, we were standing in the park and a “nice” guy asked what we were looking for and then directed us to some other places around the city. Then called a tuk-tuk driver over and “negotiated” for us a cheaper price. Also he told us how we were lucky because a suit exporter named Voglee was open to non-thais for only this week due to some govt decree.

At our next temple destination the tuk-tuk driver left to go to the bathroom and a guy sitting next to us smoking a cigarette started making small talk and then asked where we were going and what we had seen. When we mentioned that we might go to Voglee, he confirmed that it was a must see.

Later that night when discussing with other Americans and after searching online, we discovered that every one of these people were all working together, including the random guy smoking a cigarette. And their tuk-tuk drivers also “had to go the bathroom.”

Here’s some advice for Bangkok – don’t trust anyone. Don’t listen to anyone who is offering advice or trying to be nice. Everyone is trying to cheat you, screw you or take your money. No one is nice. DO NOT TRUST ANYONE. They are all in on it. Ever seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre? It’s just like that. Just when you think you are meeting a normal person, you are wrong. EVERY ONE OF THEM IS IN ON IT. They are not just trying to sell you a product; they are full of lies and crafty schemes. People who have been ripped off have reported this to the police, who do nothing and don’t care.W

We stayed at a hotel and their cabbies were always trying to offer rides without turning on the meter and to sell us more “Tourist authority” bullshit. It never ends. It makes you want to hide out in a hotel all day because everyone on the street is always trying to con you. But then again, the hotel is in on it too.

8.20.09 Bangkok

We arrived late, around 11 pm. We took a hot pink taxi driven by a dude on drugs. First he attempted to drive without the meter on and charge us over twice as much as it cost to get to our hoste. Next, he tried to kill us all. He was going half the speed as every other car on the road and started swerving in and out of lanes. Jenn looked at his eyes in the rearview mirror and noticed he was falling asleep at the wheel. When we finally arrived, he tried to do a 10-point turn in the parking lot. Nutjob! Great start to a trip.

8.18.09 Jenn's shopping spree

We parted ways in the morning coming back from Wu Lai because Jenn wanted to shop at Wu Fen Pu, basically a fashion district that has endless rows and rows of clothes and accessories. It's pretty much an impossible maze.

She only had limited cash so was careful to spend wisely. She spent almost every last penny of it on 5 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, 2 skirts and a dress. She was starving and wanted these snacky cake things but she didn't have 30 NT (90 cents) so she asked the lady to give her a half serving. She stopped by Eslite (bookstore) to buy a Thailand travel guide in English, which was not a problem because they took credit card there. She made it home with only 3NT (9 cents) to spare on her metrocard.

We went to Jenn's Aunt Amanda's house for a dinner party, and consumed a lot of really good red wine.

8.17.09 Wulai

We got a late start on the day, due to the late night hiking. We went to Wulai, which is famous for its waterfalls. We walked around on Wulai Old Street and had some food that was less than impressive (this seems to be a recurring thing at touristy areas).

We took a cable car from Wulai up some mountain. There was a large hotel on the otherside with huge grounds, which were not visible from the other end of the cable station. We were surprised to find so much stuff on the other side when we arrived. We had afternoon tea at the hotel. The waffles were the best waffles Jenn has ever had. Kyle had some fruity drink made from these small green citrus-looking things, and Jenn had an iced coffee while they enjoyed the view.

We walked the hotel grounds afterwards, and played around on a random obstacle course. When it started to get dark around 7 pm, we noticed that no one was really around anymore, so we went back to the cable car, which was supposed to run every 10 minutes until 10 pm. There was no one at the front desk or at the cable car, so Jenn called the hotel to see what was going on. The hotel transferred her to the cable car operator who insisted that he was standing at the station - but clearly, no one was there. It was like something out of a ghost movie.

Anyways, turned out the cable car guy we talked to was at the station down below and we had to press some random button on a pole on our side to get some dude in his wifebeater and slippers to come down and operate the cable car. Very interesting.

We stayed at a bed and breakfast-ish place in Wulai for the night, which had a huge tub for soaking in hot springs. Who knows if it was really hotspring water, but it was nice.

In the morning they brought us a yummy breakfast of sandwiches, kiwi, a sweet roll and some coffee.