I got up about 9:00AM, Courtney about 9:40, we had breakfast, and walked to the Grand Palace. We weren't going to go in, just look at it from the outside. There was a friendly Thai man hanging around, and he started chatting us up, he was a teacher, and he started talking about the King and Queen, and how nice the Queen was, she likes to give to the Thai people, and whatnot, and then he asked us if we'd seen any of the sights yet, and we said not really, and he asked as about the Ancient Buddha, Standing Buddha, and Marble Temple, and we said we hadn't visited them yet, and he was kinda shocked. He told us that because of Chinese New Year, tourists could go in for free (usually 200 baht for each of the them), and the tourists didn't need to cover up either. He told us we had to visit them, they are must see's for tourists to understand the Thai culture and Buddhism and stuff, so he drew a little map for us on how to get there, then he remarked about this place called "Broadways", which is the tailor that makes all the Italian fashions (Armani, etc.) He said we had to stop there, it was the last day of a promotion for visitors, we could buy an expensive suit for cheap, and we were kind of intriqued and interested. He then flagged down a "tuk-tuk" (pronounced toque-toque), and talked to the driver, and showed him the map he had drawn. The tuk-tuk driver said 40 baht for both of us to go to these four stops (just over a buck Canadian), and the tuk-tuk driver spoke a little English, so all was well.
So, off we go in our little tuk-tuk, weaving in and out of traffic, and we get to the Ancient Buddha and temple, which was pretty neat, and the tuk-tuk driver kind of acted like a guide, taking us around and showing us stuff. He bought some food and started feeding it to the fish in the river, and they swarmed up like hungry pirhana, it was pretty neat. Our tuk-tuk driver went back to his tuk-tuk and he'd wait for us while finished looking around. Inside one of the temple was a security guard-looking person, who spoke good english, and he started chatting us up, he was from New York, going to university there, taking Law, and he was back in Thailand for the month to take care of his father (no social net in Thailand), and we showed him our little map that buddy had given us, and he saw the Broadways on there, and he was shocked how we had heard about that place. He reiterated that we HAD to go to Broadways, because of this promotion, and get, like 75% off of designer suits, and become a member, so we can order from them for the rest of our lives. He was a member, he showed us his card, and he told us he orders suits from New York from them, and they ship them to him in New York, as he needs nice stuff, being an attorney.
So, we're kinda stoked, and we go back to the tuk-tuk, and we try to ask the tuk-tuk driver to take us back to our guest house so we can get more money. He doesn't quite understand, he thinks we want to quit, so we forget about getting more money, and off we go to the Standing Buddha. This was cool, a huge, perhaps 4 story gold Buddha, very impressive. We walk around the temple complex for a bit, then back to the tuk-tuk. The tuk-tuk driver then takes us to Broadways, and it's just a small tailor shop, they do all the fashions for the Italian designers, but if we buy from them direct, we get great deal. Instead of paying $2500 for a suit, we can get it for perhaps $1000. It was at this point that we realized that we were part of the "scam" that the tuk-tuk drivers partake in. (Mavis, I'm sure you heard all about these when you were here.) Anyway, we sit and listen to the spiel, and he tries to pressure us into making a deposit, because we didn't have any money, but we insist we'll think about it and come back. So, we spent maybe 15 minutes in there. We go back to the tuk-tuk driver, and he informs us that we have to visit this "factory", and that we should go inside, and take our time looking around, so off we go. It's a gem factory, where they try to sell jewelerry (sp?) at inflated prices, which of course, we have no intention of buying. Once the sales people here realize we have no intention of purchasing, they quickly usher us out of the building, back to the tuk-tuk we go, and he asks us to just go in this other fashion store and look around for a 15 or 20 minutes. This time he's honest with us, and the driver tells us that he gets paid if we go in and look around, so we oblige for him (he was a nice guy!), and we go inside, and they try their sales pitch, but of course, we're not buying anything. We try to stretch out our time to about 15 minutes for tuk-tuk dude, but I think we were probably out of there within 10 minutes. It was at this point that Court noticed that the tuk-tuk driver had a "Broadways" sticker on the dash of his tuk-tuk!
Anyway, that's it for the sales pitches, the tuk-tuk driver takes us to the Marble Temple, which costs us 20 baht to get in, but after we pay, the temple protector dude doesn't want to let Courtney in because of her attire, so she tells me to go in, and she'll wait, so I walk in, then protector dude tells Court to go in anyway. Inside, there are a lot of other women with tank-tops on, he was discriminating against Court. Oh well. After the Marble Temple, the tuk-tuk takes us back to our guest house (within a block, which was fine), we pay him the 40 baht, and shake his hand, and we're done. That killed about 2 hours, and costs us next to nothing, except our time, which we have plenty of anyway.
It was about 2:30 now, so we decide to check out getting Visa's for Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. There are lots of agents in the guest house area that arrange these for you. Ends up we can't get a Cambodian visa from them right now, but I'll explain that in a bit. We do order Laos and Vietnam visa's, though, we're giving ourselves 1 month in Laos and 1 month in Vietnam (at the suggestions of Mavis and Darren and one of Court's sisters friends, who very much enjoyed Laos). It cost us 3280 baht for those two visa's, we pick them up next Thursday. Of course, we had to indicate the entry and departure date into and out of Vietnam, so we're entering on March 20, and exitting April 19. For the first time, we're on a timetable! Ack! This sucks!
Anyway, about the Cambodia visa. When we were in Krabi, one day I was checking my e-mail, and I get e-mail updates daily from the Canadian gov't on travel advisories. They had one indicating that Cambodia and Thailand are upset with each other, and while there was no threat to Canadian's in Cambodia, to be aware of public anti-Thai demonstrations in Phnom Peng (sp?) and stay away, in case of violence. Then, in the Bangkok Sun (I think that's the name), I was reading it at the guest house one day, and Thailand and Cambodia are mad at each other. You probably never heard anything about it over in North America, but both countries are on the brink of war with each other. They are amassing troops and artillery on the border, ready to go ad it. Hence, each country has closed their embassy's in the other country, so we can't get Cambodia visa's. The travel agents tell us we can get the Cambodia visa when we get to the border, no problem.
Of course, I know my mom is probably having a heart attack after reading that. I exaggerated somewhat in my description, they are not going to war or anything like that. The embassies are closed, that's why we can't get our Cambodia visa, but we're told it's no problem to get them at the Cambodia border when we get there. In the Bangkok Sun, apparently this little spit between Thailand and Cambodia started when a Thai TV star made a comment how he thought that the Angkor Wat temple complex should belong to Thailand, and that Cambodia had stolen it from Thailand. That set off both countries, and I guess there are some anti-Thai demonstrations in the streets in Phnom Peng now. Our travel plan at the moment is Laos for a month, then Vietnam, then get back to Thailand through Cambodia in a few months. Hopefully things will have settled down there by then.
Anyway, things are falling into place for Laos, Vietname and Cambodia. We're going to spend another couple of weeks in Thailand before going to Laos, we're going up to Chang Mai (northern Thailand), and will get into Laos from there.
Anyway, we had supper then got ready to go out on the town. We bought a bottle of rum from a street vendor, then hit 7-11 and bought a couple of Coke fountain drinks (for the cups!), and added in some rum, and started walking around the markets with our rum and coke. We walked down a back alley (there are small stores EVERYWHERE!), and we came across a lady selling "arghella" (pronounced ar-gee-la). Arghella is a fancy pipe system that they use to smoke flavoured tobacco. Courtney did it a lot in Jordan (everybody does it there), in fact Court brought two arghella's back from Jordan with her, along with 4 pounds of tobacco. This stuff is not bad for you, like cigarettes, there's no tar and nicotine or any other chemicals in it, it's just tobacco, with flavouring (apple, orange, honey, whatever). Courtney was ecstatic, because she had been talking earlier in the day about really wanting to do some arghella, she was missing it, and being in SE Asia really reminded her of Jordan. Anyway, we sat down, got our own arghella, and got apple flavoured tobacco, and Court went at it. I had some too (I had tried it at Court's house after she got back from Jordan as well), but after a little while, it just starts making me hack and cough, so I had to quit. Court was in her glory, though. Sitting beside us was a guy from Japan (Susumi was his name), visiting Thailand for 3 weeks. AFter finishing up our arghella, and emptying the rum, we decided to find a bar (disco), so we went to one called Airway, on top of a building, but there was no one there, so we found another one, called Gulliver's, that Susumi knew about. It was packed with male travellers and Thai females.
The bar closed about 1:45 so the three of us left, and walked around the market some more. There was a bunch of guys breakdancing in the street, which was cool, then we came across some lady selling cooked insects. Another guy had just bought the last batch of "small worms", and was offering them to us, Susumi took a few, he had had them earlier, and liked them, and tried to get us to try them, so we did. Whether it was the alcohol or just being a different culture/country, but we popped a few small worms, and guess what. It wasn't gross. They were crunchy, and very salty. In fact, it was like there were no guts of anything, just the outer shell. Not too bad! (I can see my mom gagging right now!) They lady also had small grasshoppers, and big-ass grasshoppers, and some big worms. Susumi asked her if we could sample the grasshoppers, and she said ya, so Susumi grabbed one, and enticed Courtney to grab one, which she did, and I got a pictures of both of them sticking theses cooked grasshoppers in their mouths! I have to admit, I regret not trying one, just because I had the opportunity, and I passed it up. DAMN!!! Eating worms and grasshoppers is something I know I'd *NEVER* do in Canada, and that's why I wish I would have sampled the grasshopper. Oh well, maybe another night.
Courtney was giggly the rest of the night..."HeeHeeheehee, I can't believe I at a grasshoppers! Heeheeheeheehee!" We got back to our guest house about 3:00AM.
AFter she jumped in bed, she said to me again..."Heeheehee, I ate a grasshopper, I can't believe I ate a grasshopper! Heeheeheehee!"
Courtney is in the process of trying to upload some pics, but it's very slow going, so I doubt we'll get anything up.
So far, Bangkok is pretty much how I imagined Bangkok to be. It's actually quite amazing the city runs as well as it does, considering how chaotic everything seems.
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