January 19th, 2019

Jan 19th, 2019

I just wanna touch briefly on how distinctly grumpy Brooke and I were with each other yesterday when we finally made it to our hotel. It was obviously a result of 26+ hours of traveling, but when you’re IN the grumpiness you can’t really get a good grasp on what the problem is or how to fix it. Turns out the solution was for us to take our little asses to bed and sleep. We woke up  snuggling and immediately laughing about our bad attitudes.

AND THEN WE HAD A GREAT DAY IN BANGKOK!!

I woke up sharp as a tack at precisely 4am, 4pm Atlanta time. I wrote some blog and shuffled around our little room preparing for the day. 

The hotel/hostel provided a buffet and we absolutely ravaged it. We hadn’t eaten a solid plant meal in MANY hours. I don’t know if they will ever recover from the damage we inflicted on that poor buffet spread. 

Then, off to the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. We are staying in Riverside, so my plan was to hit everything we could on this side of town, saving the eastern spots for when we arrive back in Bangkok at the end of the month. 

After a short walk we were where we needed to be. It was 8am and a short line had already developed, but by the time 30 more minutes had passed and the gates opened there were hundreds of people behind us. We flooded into the palace grounds like a tidal wave. Guards waited on the inside of the palace walls to direct ladies and gentlemen with short shorts or exposed shoulders into a shop where they can buy cover ups. 

Entering the palace grounds we were struck by the grandeur of the whole thing... Towering temples and glittering shrines scattered the place- each with their own flare. I’d never seen anything close to what we were looking at. All of us eager tourists scoured the place taking it all in. I imagined us from a drone’s POV, like ants on a fallen lollipop. There were SO MANY OF US and we were all clamoring for the exact same photos. But all that aside, the place was truly a remarkable sight. The details were unmatched, though it did make me think of the Taj.

Last thing I wanna say is how stunning the actual Palace was... Especially in comparison to the boring Buckingham one.

Next on our list was the flower market. A tuk-tuk declined to drive us there because it was so close, which i just can’t get over for some reason that I can’t put my finger on. A ten minute walk led us to Wat Pho.

Wat Pho was also incredibly beautiful and I really was not expecting the Reclining Buddha to be THAT humongous. I knew it was big, but WOW. I couldn’t even get a picture with all of his toes included!! This was a highlight, I LOVE oversized things!

We pressed on after having a great time on the Wat Pho grounds. (“Brooke, stand on that rock!” “No!” “You’re allowed to!”)

We walked straight to Pak Khlong Market Flower Market. This was a great market. Of course they had other things besides flowers. Like oranges.

The aisles were so narrow and the shelves so packed. I kept thinking it was one of the most quaint markets I’ve been to. 

We didn’t have a plan for what to do next, but I was really pushing for a khlong ride. We continued south until we hit the riverside. I asked a few people where we could find some smaller boats... “Pier 4” was the reply. We struck the correct pier and a short barefoot woman who reminded me of myself when I’m older ran over to us to recruit us to go on a khlong ride. She explained the scenario- 2 hours, here to the floating market, 1500 baht for each person, this and this, that and that. My crew hesitated, contemplating the time allotted because we had to catch a train later. As we were mumbling about this our little lady looked me dead in my eyes and with absolute certainty exclaimed, “500 baht, final price!” Uhhhh! We weren’t even meaning to haggle!! 

We agreed. We cut up with the woman and spoke a bit more about the plans. But as we were walking to board the boat, she  forcibly grabbed my shoulder to whip me around. She said under her breath, “please don’t talk about your price, those two men paid 1500 baht! Go, tell your friends do not talk! Go!”  After this exchange, I was convinced we got the special price because we were ‘family’ :-).

OK THE BOAT RIDE WAS THE BEST PART OF THE DAY. Getting into the boat was one of my favorite parts, actually. Dismounting that wobbly floating dock in those rough waves was an experience in itself. It really set the mood!! It was the perfect mixture of serious danger and exhilaration!

We shot off across the river with quite some speed. Then we snaked through some residential canals. I loved seeing the homes. The floating market was reached in about 45 mins. We hopped off the boat for 30 minutes to explore the market. One notable feature was the number of fish this little girl attracted with a bag of Cheetos.

Brooke bought some coconut ice cream, I bought a banana. Olivia and Kiana bought beers, and later I did as well. A very pleasant market experience.

Back on the boat! Zoom down the side of the river until we reached Wat Arun, another major religious attraction. Bye boat!

Wat Arun was another phenomenal piece of art. Lots of  ants crawling around. Two of the ants were Instagram people who had to stand in the blistering sun for over 30 minutes to get one photo. This specific photo was of girlfriend letting go of boyfriend’s hand as she left him to run through the glittering sunlight into the beauty of the Asian temple. But they couldn’t get it right (i.e. “my hand looks weird”). So they did it over and over without hesitation. The ants were all in their way, so it was a painstaking process of attempting the photo, failing perfection, waiting for tourists to get out of the photo, failing again in the 3 second time slot of no one interfering, and repeat. Content creation is serious business, folks. 

Now, run back to our hotel, grab our bags, and off to the train station. 

Getting on a train was a seamless process that I’ll never forget. We bought the tickets to Ayutthaya and were on the correct train in 5 minutes. Absolutely no confusion involved and I was high on life because of it. These tickets were for 3rd class seats- my goal is to experience all 3 train classes in reverse order while I’m here.

Open air, thrilling, and slow. No tourists. Two hours after boarding we made it to Ayutthaya. The little ticket man on board made sure to come back around to us to let us know our stop was coming up, which I appreciated! 

Our B&B was easy for our tuk tuk to find. Such a cute place! And the woman who lives here went well into detail with me about where we can eat and what we can do and how we can get around! Very sweet. I can see their living quarters through the floorboards of my room.

We ran off into the night to find some street food at an outdoor market. We were so hungry. A little boy caught us soon after we arrived and his mom and pop made us some tasty veggie pad thai. Olivia and I ordered another plate full after we finished!!