Antipodean Shmantipodean: One night in Bangkok and the world is your slimy sea food.

Bangkok is rather spectacular, I have to say. We’ve had the great luck to come in a few days before a national holiday and the birthday of the king, and whether it is because of that or unrelated it does mean we came in in the middle of a grand sale. Which also, in a great many stores, lasts till midnight. So good discounts AND easy shopping ability, certainly nothing to complain about. Not incredibly impressed with the offerings, however. Tafkab bought face wash. I bought nothing. I was going to buy a camera, but the one I want it not available in Thailand, so that will have to wait until Sidney. New camera or not, we do of course have pictures. Full pictures will be posted on our Facebook pages, but some highlights of the trip deserve picture coverage.

Here goes.

After spending the morning on the look-out for the camera, which we did not find, we went to the grand palace EXACTLY on time to be late for the morning opening hours. Luckily, we were intercepted by a tuk-tuk driver who was so incredibly generic we dubbed him TukTuk Bob.

Tafkab and TukTuk Bob. Not pictured: Mind numbing fear during TukTuk ride.

Bob suggested a route that he would drive us past a few sites of interest, a few stores as specified by both our needed products and what types of kickbacks he would get (not mentioned in the negotiations but we know how this works) and off we went.

And let me tells ya, TukTuks might be touristy, but they are also DAMN fun and scary as hell, especially with Bob enthusiastically talking to us, often while looking at us and moving straight into oncoming traffic.

First Stop: Really tall Buddha.

Sooo Yes, this was a tall Buddha.

What with it being a Buddha-based holiday the entry to this site was free, and well, it was a big, big Buddha. Not the biggest I’ve seen today but very nice still. It was across from the school where Bob’s daughter works, which adds a certain level of cool, if you know Bob. It was also the Buddha Bob said a little prayer at for our luck and safety, I can’t fault the man anything.

The complex the big Buddha was in was otherwise unremarkable, in that it was absolutely gorgeous just like all the other sites we visited. So unremarkably from a tourist standpoint, but definitely remarkable from a sheer beauty perspective.

Next stop(s) Shops, shops, shops.

Yeeeessss yes, we are tourists, we know how it works, they use a similar program everywhere. Between good tourist sites you are carted to a number of shops with local products and suchlike. Which is good, because we needed local products. And by local products, I mean suits. And by need, I mean wanted.

So we were fitted for a couple of suits and shirts, by quite a cute fellow, who will be delivering the suits to our hotel for final fitting tomorrow evening. Growing up Dutch the level of service and politeness here is stunning, but the incredible ease that almost everything happes in is really impressive.

Stop after that: Reclining Buddha

Ok, so I might not be the most cultured person in the world, but I did think the Reclining Buddha was elsewhere. And it isn’t, it’s very close to the Grand Palace. As it is, I was very much looking forward to this. Regardless of my slight topographical mishap, I always found this thing really cool, and seeing it up close and personal was even cooler.

Licking Reclining Buddha’s nipple. Not pictured: Outraged Buddhists and Security guards,

Next stop : The Grand Palace

I’m always a sucker for well-named things, and yes, this place was and is grand. Beautiful architecture, incredible decorations, impressive size, well kept gardens and Indian Water-lily type guardian giants as far as the eye can see. We tried to get into the Emerald Buddha temple, but this was regretfully closed. Might try again tomorrow, might not. I do know that the Grand Palace, though not necessarily designed for picture taking, does allow for gooood pictures. Strange.

While waiting to enter the Grand Palace there was some kind of palaver going on at the entry way. Having caught a glimpse of the King earlier in the day we were hoping to see him up close again, but either he was cleverly disguised as a fat admiral type, or it was just some other dignitary. Impressive lack of force and airtight security was used to ensure only the really willing assassins had a shot at the man, but they were all on holiday as well apparently.

Tafkab outside the Grand Palace being all Japanese-y

Kevin inside the Grand Palace also being all Japanese-y

Trying to fit in with the topiary in the Grand Palace

After clearly not fitting in, Kevin regretfully got into a topiary fist fight.

Neeeext stop: Boating on the river.

As a good close of the day, Bob brought us to the riverbank where we boarded a boat to take us on an hours trip through the cities waterways. With the risk of repeating myself, quite cool again. Being on the water is always nice, and it awarded some very good views. Also, it gaves us a chance to randomly buy some bread that we were told to throw into the water. Thinking we were feeding pigeons, we grumbled a bit, until it turned out we were feeding these:

Fish. Loads of them. Also some of the bread they did away with very swiftly.

After all this excitement, we went for the first fitting of our suits, and back to the hotel for some needed rest. We’ve not exactly run out of things to do here, but we did do everything that was on the list, and more, in the first day. Many thanks to Bob, without whom we’d’ve not been able to do all we did, and without whome’s guidance we’d’ve not even known they were there to do.

Tomorrow is going to be somewhat more relaxed. I for one want to test the hotel’s facilities (pool, sauna, good stuff) and have a bit of a tanning session.

Oh! I’ve not told you about the hotel. Suggested by my MBTC (My Best Thai Colleague) it is sooomewhat further from the centre than was suggested (How… MBTC wears heels… I already died in sneakers) but it is a very, very nice hotel. Empty, now, during the week, but the room is absolutely great. We found it easily yesterday evening, but for the rest of the stay it’s cabs and suchlike as far as I’m concerned.

Some random photo’s on the way: