Despite two previous stops in Bangkok (was supposed to be three were it not for the red shirt protests), we still hadn't really had a chance to explore the city. This time through we had more time and feel we truly got to experience Bangkok --- the good, the bad and the ugly.
We ended up staying not far from the palace, many of the more popular temples and the infamous Khao San Road. But we were still far enough away to have a nice mellow, quiet hotel. We did venture down to Khao San a few times, however, and it lived up to it billing.
The recent unrest in Bangkok hasn’t seemed to slow down Khao San, at least after dark. The street and really the area are jammed packed with restaurants, bars and guesthouses. For those that don't know, it is the backpacker mecca of Bangkok and was made famous (or more famous) by the 1997 book (and later Leonardo DiCaprio movie) called "The Beach." Khao San, like Vang Vieng and Haad Rin on Koh Phangan (also depicted in "The Beach") pretty much solely exists now to cater to backpackers looking to get wasted cheap and with no ID required.
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These have not been our favorite types of places. But Khao San is definitely a sight to behold. It reminds me of nights on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas on steroids, but with Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" blaring constantly from ten different clubs.
The World Cup also brought out loads of crazy fans and every restaurant and bar shows the games. That said, we met some really nice folks sitting and watching some of the matches.
A few blocks north of Khao San there is a street loaded with street stalls. Really the stalls are everywhere, but here there was a good concentration of them and we found the best Pad Thai either of us have ever had. We went back a few times to try to get more, but never found them open again.
We also decided we had to go see some temples. Honestly, we were getting a bit sick of visiting temples. Not that they aren't beautiful, but we've seen a lot of churches and temples at this point. We decided to first walk down to Wat Pho, one of the more famous temples and site of the giant reclining Buddha (more on that later). As we were walking south to the wat, we realized we might be off by a street or so, so we sat down in a park and tried to hide the fact that we were consulting a guidebook map. Alas we were made and a nice older Thai man came up to us and offered to help. At first we were a bit wary, but he seemed very genuine. Still I was thinking that perhaps he'd ask us for a bit of change for helping at most. He told us about some of the temples on our map, suggesting some and not being too enthusiastic about others. He also pointed us to nice temples not featured in the guidebooks such as the Lucky Buddha and "Glorious Temple."
He then gave us what seemed like great locals advice and said always get a tuk tuk with a white license plate as these are government licensed and prices are fixed. Wow really!?! Why haven't I heard of this before!
We headed out to the street to look for a white license plate. A few yellow license plates passed and then there came a white. Our new friend hailed him for us and showed him on our map where we wanted to go. We got the great price of just 50 baht (about US$1.50) for our own tuk tuk for the whole day of temple gazing! Thanks, new friend! And off we went.
The first temple, Wat Indrawiharn, was very cool and featured a giant 32 meter (100 foot) tall standing Buddha.
The second temple, the so-called "Lucky Buddha" (I still don't know its real name) was actually quite nice too. Not a tourist to be seen anywhere. It wasn't very big though and after a quick look around, we headed back to the tuk tuk. When we got there, the driver asks if it is okay if he goes to the toilet. Of course, we say sure! Shortly after he leaves, a man in the car next to us starts talking to us. He asks about us and where we're from then says he is lawyer too and works for a firm called Baker & McKenzie. They have offices in the US too, he says. Leslie knows of the firm and we have a nice conversation. He's a corporate tax lawyer, he says, but his parents still live in Bangkok and his brother is a monk at this very wat. “Where are you headed,” he asks. We show him on the map that our Thai professor friend from the park had helped us with. "Oh Glorious!" he says, "you will really like that." Oh why is that? "Well it's the best tailor in Thailand, maybe all of Asia," he says. Uhh, what!?! Tailor? Umm, we thought it was a temple. "No, but it is great deal, usually not open to tourists, only Thai people. Today is the last day of their tourist promotion.”
We may be slow, but at this point, it clicked. The guy in the park must work for this tailor, I said to Leslie later as we were underway again in the tuk tuk. At that point I told the tuk tuk driver that we didn't need any clothes, we didn't have money to buy them even if we did and we could skip Glorious and head to the next temple. At this, the tuk tuk driver came clean (sorta) and said he gets free gas coupons from the tailor if he brings us there. We only need to look for five minutes, he says. Okay, we can look for five minutes to get this guy some free gas. At least he's being honest, we think.
We were expecting a hard sale at the tailor, but really didn't get it. We sat down in the “VIP room” for five minutes, looked at some catalogs and then left. No big deal really. We then went to Wat Benchamabophit affectionately known as simply Wat Ben. Another really nice temple, but we were tired and decided to save Wat Pho for the next day.
After being dropped back at our guesthouse, I simply had to know what had just happened to us and Googled "Glorious Tailors." What I found was exact descriptions of our day. From the "professor" in the park to the tuk tuk driver bathroom break to the "lawyer" from the UK (or the U.S. if he happens to be talking to Europeans) to the claims of free gas coupons to Glorious Tailors. Everything that had happened to us that day went according to script. It was very elaborate and very convincing. We read online that a lot of people do buy a lot of stuff from Glorious which, of course, is why they do it. We didn't buy anything, however, and got a good day at the temples out of it and a very cheap tuk tuk for the day. All we lost was a little pride at being deceived so easily. All part of the Bangkok experience, I guess.
The next day we did head down to Wat Pho and saw the temple and the famous reclining Buddha.
From Wikipedia:
Wat Pho is one of the largest and oldest wats in Bangkok (with an area of 50 rai, 80,000 square metres), and is home to more than one thousand Buddha images, as well as one of the largest single Buddha images: the Reclining Buddha. Made as part of Rama III's restoration, the Reclining Buddha is forty-six metres long and fifteen metres high, decorated with gold plating on his body and mother of pearl on his eyes and the soles of his feet. The latter display 108 auspicious scenes in Chinese and Indian styles.
The Wat Pho complex consists of two walled compounds bisected by Soi Chetuphon running east–west. The northern walled compound is where the reclining Buddha and massage school are found. The southern walled compound, Tukgawee, is a working Buddhist monastery with monks in residence and a school.
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It was quite cool, but again, we were a little numb to the temples by this point. With that in mind (and a relatively expensive entry fee) we decided to skip the Grand Palace and just saw that from the street.
Bangkok is definitely a trip! We're glad that things have returned to some semblance of normalcy after the protests so we were able to explore this city. Now off to Hong Kong!
Yay Austin got a shout out. Have I ever intentionally brought you to 6th st? Miss you guys.
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