Today most of the tourist sites are open. We're up and ready to explore after our breakfast.
We walk past Lumpini Park in search of the Skytrain transport to the river. However, the station is hard to find - I don't see it near the circle marked on our map. We try asking a few people, but get directions that we are unable to follow successfully. A taxi picks us up, but he speaks only Thai and we only speak English. Even our map pointing doesn't help, so he has us get out again. Another taxi did understand that we wanted to get a boat on the river, but he took us to a touring boat ramp. We looked at their offerings, but they all cost about 50 times as much as the "river bus". We walked away, to try to find the berth for the public river transportation, and the same taxi driver saw us. Now understanding our desire, he took us on a quick ride to a riverboat terminal without charging us anything more.
The riverboat ride to the Grand Palace was fun. When we got off, the crowded path led past gift shops and food stands toward the palace. We took a side walk through amulet displays, more than we could imagine, where you could purchase protections against all forms of evil. The actual tour of the palace looked incredibly crowded, and we chose not to wait in line, instead viewing and taking pictures of the graceful roofs of the palace buildings from outside the walls. We did see a young boy eating a plate of five or six fried eggs, all small - soon enough we see the basket of quail eggs that were cooked for him.
Later we started walking faster, looking with increasing desperation for a public toilet, and finally ducked into the Royal Hotel coffee shop. We shared a beer and a bowlful of nuts, but I swear it wasn't our drinking that made us see pink elephants - I have the picture to prove it!
We passed on our opportunity to get a little Thai massage.
We did enter the Wat Pho grounds where we saw many golden Buddha statues. One especially large sitting Buddha glowed inside a protective building whose walls were painted with scenes from Buddhist villages. Lindy and I took turns admiring the Buddha while the other waited outside guarding shoes and bags.
Returning by riverboat, it was easier to get to the main station under the bridge, from which we found the Skytrain with little difficulty. We did get on going the wrong direction, but switched trains at the next station easily enough. We exited quite close to our hotel, and tried the direct route - but found ourselves walking through back alleys in an attempt to walk like the crow flies. We did manage to get from one long avenue to the next parallel one but one more alley walk looked unlikely to succeed. We realized we'd just have to walk up a long block to a real road, then over to the next avenue, and back down an equally long block to reach our hotel.
For dinner, we enjoyed coconut breaded shrimp with spicy mango sauce, Russian potato cheese dumplings, Thai corn fritters and watermelon gazpacho accompanied by a rich Merlot.
It's been a fun day with a lot of exercise.
We walk past Lumpini Park in search of the Skytrain transport to the river. However, the station is hard to find - I don't see it near the circle marked on our map. We try asking a few people, but get directions that we are unable to follow successfully. A taxi picks us up, but he speaks only Thai and we only speak English. Even our map pointing doesn't help, so he has us get out again. Another taxi did understand that we wanted to get a boat on the river, but he took us to a touring boat ramp. We looked at their offerings, but they all cost about 50 times as much as the "river bus". We walked away, to try to find the berth for the public river transportation, and the same taxi driver saw us. Now understanding our desire, he took us on a quick ride to a riverboat terminal without charging us anything more.
 |
| Quail eggs |
Later we started walking faster, looking with increasing desperation for a public toilet, and finally ducked into the Royal Hotel coffee shop. We shared a beer and a bowlful of nuts, but I swear it wasn't our drinking that made us see pink elephants - I have the picture to prove it!
We passed on our opportunity to get a little Thai massage.
We did enter the Wat Pho grounds where we saw many golden Buddha statues. One especially large sitting Buddha glowed inside a protective building whose walls were painted with scenes from Buddhist villages. Lindy and I took turns admiring the Buddha while the other waited outside guarding shoes and bags.
Returning by riverboat, it was easier to get to the main station under the bridge, from which we found the Skytrain with little difficulty. We did get on going the wrong direction, but switched trains at the next station easily enough. We exited quite close to our hotel, and tried the direct route - but found ourselves walking through back alleys in an attempt to walk like the crow flies. We did manage to get from one long avenue to the next parallel one but one more alley walk looked unlikely to succeed. We realized we'd just have to walk up a long block to a real road, then over to the next avenue, and back down an equally long block to reach our hotel.
For dinner, we enjoyed coconut breaded shrimp with spicy mango sauce, Russian potato cheese dumplings, Thai corn fritters and watermelon gazpacho accompanied by a rich Merlot.
It's been a fun day with a lot of exercise.
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