Tuk tuks, long boats, and the Tarzan Van

We joined Ms Nes and our driver Mr S again today for a tour of major sites in Bangkok. Traffic is nuts here and the sites are geographically spread, so a driver is imperative if you want to see multiple sites in a day.

Today the dress code was even stricter for our trip to the Grand Palace, the Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abby equivalent in Thailand for the Thai king and queen.  As we walked down to breakfast, the very friendly staff speculated that we were going to the grand palace today, it’s that distinctive.  Yesterday, men could get away with wearing anything so long as it had a shirt and shorts component.  Today, even they had to cover their knees, and there was a wealth of tourist that had to buy Thai baggy pants to get in.  We saw guards stopping people who were wearing the wrong thing. 

Jane is in love with Thai fruits. Here she’s trying another new fruit and loving it. 

We cruised through Chinatown but didn’t have time to stop. 

No robes, please. 

Picture of the King and/or Queen are everywhere in Bangkok. 

I’m not skilled enough to take adequate photos to capture the thrill of the palace and temple grounds. Below are some pretty poor attempt to describe the setting. We deemed it well worth the visit!

This is a Temple donation. You give100 Bhat to the temple in exchange for 100 singles Baht coins. You drop each coin into each bowl down the line of the temple. 

We also sampled riding though town on a TukTuk. We would never have done this alone, having read all of the warnings about getting scammed. Even thoughts NES gave us those warnings ourself, she confidently engaged and paid for our trip without any mishap. 

There’s just no way to capture this declining Buddha. He’s incredibly long and large, filling this entire building. 

All 3 of us adored this puppy Chihuahua. We stopped to play with him for a few moments sand talked about him off and on all day. 

We stopped at the flower market, where Ms Nes taught us to fold the lotus flower petals suitable for offerings. 

Here’s Jane giving her flower offering later. 

These flowers are all something that would be donated to a temple. They were scandalously cheap. We were told they are only this cheap in this wholesale market. As they get distributed around the city for retail sale, the prices double or triple. 

The market also includes fruits and vegetables. Thailand has a huge variety, including many we just can’t get at home. 

We rode in a longboat through the river that cuts across Bangkok. slightly frightening considering the traffic. When we turned off onto smaller Canals that cross cross the city, the water and water traffic got smoother. 

Giant seated Buddha is 23 stories tall!

Jane was impressed by her chicken broth and vegetables soup.  Ms. Ned chose well for our lunch spot. 

After a late lunch we went back to the hotel to cool off and rest. We didn’t rest too much because we had to find some cheap clothes. Ms. Nes warned us about how conservative the dress code was for sites in Malaysia. Since tomorrow we head to Kuala Lumpur we decided to each get one more conservative outfit and head scarf. Ms. Nes recommended a specific mall for cheap clothes and knockoffs that would have it. Stay tuned in two days for our conservative clothing debut. I look like a new Golden Girl and Jane declared herself to look like a piratess, a pretty one but a piratess nonetheless. 

Jane turned a lot of heads in Bangkok today. She seems oblivious, but I wanted lots of folks do a double take. Some Thai ladies even stopped us to tell her how beautiful she looked.  A little later we saw a Prada add where the model was a ringer for Jane, down to the exact same edgy haircut and color. 

We are off to bed, prepping for our flight to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.