After getting up in the morning we went to check out the pool and to breakfast after that. I took pouched eggs that looked like just two raw egg yolks on top of some kind of egg white mess. I didn't even want to take a picture of them, that's how sad they looked. After a short trip back to our room we went out for a more sophisticated cultural and religios day. We had planned to visit few wats (temples) nearby, one of them being Golden Mountain Temple. In our 'hood they were still dealing with the remnants of last nights parties and cleaning the streets with washing powder and water. We had barely reached the first traffic light when a Thai "teacher" from the school across the street (why is he hanging out on the streets at 10am on a weekday instead of teaching, we didn't ask) approached us and asked where we're going. His eyes got round and he told us that on Monday our target wat will be opened at 1PM and we could take a boat trip instead. We must have looked not convinced so he repeated that he's a teacher, see, from that school over there, not just some random tuktuk driver. We still wanted to walk to the temple and he even got somewhat angry that we waste our day instead of going to the boat trip. On Monday all the canals are even open and everything. But sowjet schooled ladies shoved the Thai plans aside and went to the temple that, what a surprise! was open since 7 am. We walked all the 344 steps up and then all the 344 steps down after enjoying some great views from top. Had some lunch after and returned to our hotel.
The boat trip chat had raised some interest in us tho, so I googled river cruise options. First I found some comments from fellow tourists, where they mentioned a Thai teacher, who had recommended them to go to a boat trip and then sold them an expensive one hour boat trip. While the usual price for three people is appr. 20 EUR, mentioned teacher cashed in 80 EUR for one. We patted ourselves on shoulder for not falling for that scam. Secondly I found some hop-on-hop-off tourist boats. You get a dayticket for 5 EUR and hop on or off whereever you want. Or whereever there is a pier. Third I found a local boat that operates as public transportation and where one ride costs appr. 40 cents. So we went to the pier with the plan to take the local boat to Wat Arun (the temple that Finally, on my 5th trip to Bangkok is not under renovation anymore!). On the pier we were heavily approached by a Thai lady, who wanted to sell us tourist boat. Hearing that we plan on taking the local boat, she said that the next one is coming at 4pm (it was 2pm at the moment). Since I had read that the local boats come every 20 minutes, I told the lady that no worries, we have time. She must have thought that we didn't understand when she told us that the local boat is basically not coming anymore and offered us the expensive tourist trap again. And what a surprise, in 10 minutes the local boat arrived and the people were shoved in. Few more pats on the shoulder.
The ride to Wat Arun took around ten minutes and during that time the lovely summer day turned into a summer day where water poured from up and down. We arrived to the temple soaking wet and won all the wet t-shirt competitions there. Since the rain soon finished, we continued our sightseeing trip and took the local boat to the flower market. Imagining rows and rows of beautiful smelling roses, orchids and other flowers... Turned out, 80% of the market was full of yellow chrysantemum blossoms in plastic bags, being turned into gifts for Buddha.
We continued our trip and started walking towards Chinatown. There was also a nice temple on the way, we checked out and found a crocodile pond in the yard. Little pond with small fence right in the center of the yard, under some trees. Hosting at least four crocodiles. Chinatown itself was surrounded by blocks and blocks of market full of all kind of cheap chinese origin crap. It took us at least half an hour and lot of patience to get just through it. Since I had no illusion about chinese having learned some table manners of improved their cooking skills, we decided not to risk it and took the tuktuk back to our hotel.
Helena went to the massage, I walked up to our rooftop pool. For the dinner we had fixed plan to eat sticky rice and mango, but since it felt that we should eat something fresh before that too, we went to a restaurant and ordered fruit plate. That fruit plate had at least one kilo of pineapple, banana and watermelon on it and after finishing those we didn't really feel like sticky rice anymore. Tomorrow...
The boat trip chat had raised some interest in us tho, so I googled river cruise options. First I found some comments from fellow tourists, where they mentioned a Thai teacher, who had recommended them to go to a boat trip and then sold them an expensive one hour boat trip. While the usual price for three people is appr. 20 EUR, mentioned teacher cashed in 80 EUR for one. We patted ourselves on shoulder for not falling for that scam. Secondly I found some hop-on-hop-off tourist boats. You get a dayticket for 5 EUR and hop on or off whereever you want. Or whereever there is a pier. Third I found a local boat that operates as public transportation and where one ride costs appr. 40 cents. So we went to the pier with the plan to take the local boat to Wat Arun (the temple that Finally, on my 5th trip to Bangkok is not under renovation anymore!). On the pier we were heavily approached by a Thai lady, who wanted to sell us tourist boat. Hearing that we plan on taking the local boat, she said that the next one is coming at 4pm (it was 2pm at the moment). Since I had read that the local boats come every 20 minutes, I told the lady that no worries, we have time. She must have thought that we didn't understand when she told us that the local boat is basically not coming anymore and offered us the expensive tourist trap again. And what a surprise, in 10 minutes the local boat arrived and the people were shoved in. Few more pats on the shoulder.
The ride to Wat Arun took around ten minutes and during that time the lovely summer day turned into a summer day where water poured from up and down. We arrived to the temple soaking wet and won all the wet t-shirt competitions there. Since the rain soon finished, we continued our sightseeing trip and took the local boat to the flower market. Imagining rows and rows of beautiful smelling roses, orchids and other flowers... Turned out, 80% of the market was full of yellow chrysantemum blossoms in plastic bags, being turned into gifts for Buddha.
We continued our trip and started walking towards Chinatown. There was also a nice temple on the way, we checked out and found a crocodile pond in the yard. Little pond with small fence right in the center of the yard, under some trees. Hosting at least four crocodiles. Chinatown itself was surrounded by blocks and blocks of market full of all kind of cheap chinese origin crap. It took us at least half an hour and lot of patience to get just through it. Since I had no illusion about chinese having learned some table manners of improved their cooking skills, we decided not to risk it and took the tuktuk back to our hotel.
Helena went to the massage, I walked up to our rooftop pool. For the dinner we had fixed plan to eat sticky rice and mango, but since it felt that we should eat something fresh before that too, we went to a restaurant and ordered fruit plate. That fruit plate had at least one kilo of pineapple, banana and watermelon on it and after finishing those we didn't really feel like sticky rice anymore. Tomorrow...
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