Today was our first full day in Bangkok! We actually booked a tour at the airport which was a tour around bangkok for a vey cheap price. It didnt included entrance into everywhere but for the money I don’t think we could have done it any cheaper on our own. You soon realise this is how bangkok works, they offer you cheap rides everywhere but then take you to various shops on the way. These shops essentially sponsor the tour or give the tuc tuc owner fuel for bringing tourists to them. I didn’t find it too bad actually all you had to do was look around for a few minutes and leave if there was nothing you wanted, you would have probably looked around a similar shop at some point anyway. Sorry i digress i will come onto this more in a moment. We got up early for our tour to start, expecting a car to pick us up and take us to a coach or something. Sure enough car was there with english speaking tour guide and driver so we set off.
It very quickly became apparent that this was infact the guide we had booked and there was no coach, which to be honest we were happy with, our own personal tour guide and car for a very cheap price. We went to visit a largest solid gold buddha in the world at Wat Trimitr, this temple also had what looked like wall paper on the walls but turns out that it was all hand painted. We then went to Wat Po where we saw many other interesting things including an absolutely massive laying down golden buddah which was made of concrete painted gold. The tour guide who was very friendly explained that Wat is the thai word for temple and you will notice many of these in bangkok and thailand, she also told us about the various areas we were going through and about the thai buddhist culture. Turns out that the day you are born on is very significant innthailand, whether it be monday, tuesday etc. Infact they actually have a different Buddha to pray too depending on which day you were born on plus a general one for all to pray too, some laying down and others sitting. There is also a colour associated with that day and that the colour gold/yellow has vey significant positive meaning in the thai culture.
It was all very intesting and we drove a bit further past a few more temples and royal buildings. She also asked if there was anything we fancied doing, we quite fancied a boat ride along the river so she suggested a good one along the river and canals to see how people live and work there, which sounded interesting so we decided to do it. At the end of the day she knew these guys and they will pay here to bring people to them but this was something we wanted to do and we only had 2 days in bangkok so was happy to go with it.
Boat trip lasted about an hour and on way back we stopped at some old lady selling bread, didn’t really know what was going on just assumed she needed some bread;). Anyway she bought a loaf ripped it in half and gave it to us. Turns out it was to feed the fish in front of the temple, apprently fishing is banned in front of the temple and there was literally thousands of catfish now at the surface of the water wanting to be fed. This was pretty cool! Once the bread was gone it was back to the car and off to…. well this is where the fun started. We went to a jewellery place, then to another souvenirs place which both nice to see but didnt buy anything. It’s when we ended up in suit place that we realised we were just being take around a list of random shops whether we were interested or not. It wasn’t too bad though we just said we don’t want a suit, they still told us all about them and pretended to be interested in where we were from, but was only in there 5 mins or so, then left. We got back in the car and guide fessed up saying just one more and that the shops pay money to the tour company for them to take us round. It’s fair enough really, would prefere to do this than pay more for the tour itself because when all said and done It was a really good tour and we wouldn’t have seen or learnt half the stuff doing it on our own.
The last stop was a travel company where you can book, flights, ferries, hotels etc. He wanted us to book the rest of our holiday with him but just said no thanks. We did actually book a few ferries and transfers as they seemed an ok price and saved us doing it oursleves when we get to koh samui. Tour guide then asked us where we want dropping off so got her to drop us in the shopping area. Its was actually raining when we got there so she dropped us off at a hotel reception and said we would be ok to site in there until it stopped. So that’s what we did! Then went around the street markets and had a wander round Bangkok, it’s certainly an interesting place and has a strange mix of streets that have rich and poor all on one street rather than in separate areas!
