With today being a continuation of Songkran Festival there was lots of water to be had! The white stuff we see is a flour water paste that can also be shot out of squirt guns. We took a bath in water at least 2 times today riding around in a little 3 wheeled túk-túk. First thing in the morning we were up and out of the hotel looking for a travel agent to see if we could work out a Myanmar visa. Everything was closed, but a nice Thai gentlemen told us not to go into this one jewelry store I wanted to go in, but "as he worked in the US embassy" he would have a túk-túk take us to the Thai tourist agency so that they could help us with the travel arrangements and then of course on to a few good places to shop in the area. I was thinking this was the typical scam and didn't want to go in the túk-túk, but David said there is nothing else happening right now so let's go along with it. So off we whizzed and managed to get wet with different buckets of water being tossed at us from various locations as we drove by. Travel agency had native English speakers working there, but only covered Thailand travel, so not really of use to us. We duly went to the other places and bought only one thing - a cell phone case. The túk-túk driver was of course very interested in the purchase and how much it costs as he will go back and get his commission which he has to pass on back the worker at "the US embassy". This same worker had contributed to the túk-túk driver 20 baht "to be sure he took care of us". The cost of the túk-túk ride to the 3 store locations was all of 40 baht (about $1.10).
We came back to the hotel with our purchase, soaking purse, wet clothes and changed. We put the electronics in plastic bags and put the passports back in the safe - slightly damp and then took off for the water taxi station.I had chosen this hotel off trip advisor because of the location with access to the water taxis and the sky train. We took a water taxi down the river to the Ko Ratanakosin area which has the Wat Pho (reclining budha) and the Wat Phra Kaew and Grand Palace. This area of Bangkok I visited as a young child, around 10 years old, and the impressions have stayed with me and I love to come back here, and was so happy last time I was here to bring Aniesa and Jonathan there. David thinks he came here as a child as well but does not have the impressions of it that I remember. I love the 200 years of royal history and the architecture. Unfortunately it got very hot so we breezed by the amulet market which had many small portable trinkets...I have to watch my suitcase weight but these would have been ideal. We had been to an Omani artist's show just before leaving which had these clay tablets of various interpreted old script which I saw freely displayed there glued onto the painting.
We ended the day with each having 1 hour foot massages ($9 each including tip) and then went to the Oriental hotel and splurged on high tea ($100).
No comments:
Post a Comment