Official tourist

Well - today we took the steps at being real tourists in Bangkok. We went out on our first adventure at sightseeing and it was great. We even fell prey to the tourist trap of being fleeced for money. We wanted to go to the water taxi but the real taxi driver I guess didn't understand that, so we ended up at the wrong pier. The pier we arrived at was more of chartered boat thing and I"m sure they saw us coming - because these were not fancy boats by any means and we paid far more than the 13 Baht a person you pay for the water taxi. It was still fun - and actually reflecting it gave me a better chance of taking in the atmosphere, because the water taxis can be quite crowded and full. Here's a picture of us all blowing in the wind down the river. So anyway - the boat took us down the river to where the Grand Palace is. This was my one requirement for sightseeing - after starring at my cross-stitch pattern for about 2 years I needed to see the Palace in person. It was amazing. At the dock we were bombarded with locals trying to sell us their goods - so aggressive and following us before taking no for an answer. In the guard book it warns you that locals will try to tell you the Palace it closed, so they can take you someplace in their taxi to spend money and waste time. I didn't believe it - I mean people why would people do that. But sure enough - we had a taxi driver attached to us for nearly a block trying to convince us the Palace was closed until after lunch (it was 10:30am).


The Grand Palace and a beautiful Wat (temple) are combined in one area. You need a ticket to get in but it was a small price to pay to see the beauty of this place close up. The Wat is amazing - the shiny buildings, paintings, statues.....all the craftsmanship that went into this - all those little fingers from years ago. It must be an honor for the Thai people to show it off and it still be so beautiful. I recognized the roof of the Grand Palace immediately from my project and so many of the color choices started to make sense - they roof really is three different colors! :) We walked around and took a million pictures and it was a great morning/afternoon. We managed to find the water taxi for the way home which was nice on the wallet :) And spend a leisure afternoon of reading (while the boys zonked out for long afternoon naps).

Tonight we met up with Eric from Beloit. It was great to meet my email buddy in person and meet his family. We went to a great restaurant and can now feel satisfied we've had real Thai food in Thailand. Boy, am I glad I was feeling better because the food was delicious (and would have been impossible to eat 2 days ago).