2nd full day

Our plan for the day was to look at some temples and buildings, buy tickets for the next destinations, and get fitted for suits. We didn't do all of this. One distraction in the morning was a scam-- some "helpful" locals tried to steer us toward an overpriced tailor that gave them commissions. The way this worked was one friendly guy introduced himself to people on the street, and told everyone a story about a government holiday-- tuk-tuk tour of temples for 30baht (<$1), and suggested four temples to visit. A tuk-tuk is a 3-wheeled motorcycle with passenger seats, basically a motorized rickshaw. The tuk-tuk driver took us to two of the (relatively unimpressive) temples, where additional friendly locals told us about this suit tailor and how great a deal it was. Then the tuk-tuk driver said the other temples were "closed for lunch" and suggested we go to the tailor, which we did, mostly out of curiosity. The suits looked OK to my untrained eye, but the fabric quality wasn't good, so we left and got a taxi back to the places we actually wanted to see.

We saw the Grand Palace and the Reclining Buddha. The Palace was huge-- lots of massive, ornately decorated buildings with murals depicting stories of Rama, shiny glass tiling, pearl inlays, and faux-gold paint.

It felt a bit like Disneyland, since it was maintained for tourists. There were still many Japanese tourists and local schoolkids. At least there was no American pop music. Groups of schoolkids kept approaching Kipp to ask him questions in English for school assignments. They never approached me for some reason.

The reclining Buddha was enormous. I remember seeing it in National Geographic, so it was cool to see in person.

From there, we took a tuk-tuk back to Khao San Road and our hostel. We bargained for a flat fee, so the tuk-tuk driver drove like a maniac-- as most motorcycles there do.

Cars here drive on the left. Also, there are lots of murals of the King everywhere.

We were feeling tired, so we got some touristy food (pizza), and then a relatively cheap Thai massage. It was ok but not as good as the one yesterday which cost several times as much. In this case at least you get what you pay for.


We then played foosball at a bar, then watched part of a World Cup game with a guy from Germany. I bought a laser pointer from a street vendor.

We're thinking we'll go to the beaches in Southeast Thailand, near Krabi, for the next few days.