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| Lebua State Tower |
With our 2 stop layover, 2 overnight flights and over 30 hours of traveling, we arrived in Bangkok just in time to start our day. We had our guide book in hand and knew exactly where to go and what to do to ensure we didn't get ripped off from the moment we stepped off the plane. Everything went as planned, our taxi started our meter just like we knew he should and it said just the right amount, he told us about the tolls and we paid them as we'd read... only to find that once we pulled into our hotel, Lebua State Tower, that he took us a round-a-bout way to rip us off! Our biggest mistake was likely not telling him to take us to some nearby dump instead of one of Bangkok's finest 5 star hotels! We chose to brush it off since - hey, we're in Thailand and omg, we have a luscious suite with breathtaking views of Bangkok! (By the way, their food is fantastic!)
Since we were surprisingly refreshed despite the time change, we ventured out to visit the main points immediately. The first stop; Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew
(or in English, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha). Heather and I agreed that the Grand Palace stood above everything else we've seen in beautiful color and sparkle! The pictures simply can't capture the grandness of it!
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| Temple of the Emerald Buddha |
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| Big Buddha |
We ex
perienced a slight detour prior to entering the Palace, however. If you're ever in Thailand and someone "official" tells you that it's a Buddhist holiday and the sites are closed until noon, either go along with it (like we did) or listen to your brain scream, "scam!", over and over until you've successfully ignored the official. One minute we're about to see the Palace and the next we're being ushered into a tuk tuk to see Wat Indraviharn's 32 meter high Big Buddha, a free attraction and definitely not on our list of go sees. Soon after we were taken shopping! Shocker. And like the suckers we are, we each purchased a custom tailored suit. After the tailors and the jewelry store, we managed to convince our tuk tuk driver to return us to the palace.
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| Reclining Buddha |
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When we finally tore ourselves away from the palace, we visited the other main sites, Wat Pho (Reclining Buddha Temple) and Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn). One word to describe the Reclining Buddha... huge! By the time we took a charming boat ride across the canal and saw Wat Arun, we realized that no other temple could possibly compare to our Emerald Buddha's although both were absolutely still worth a visit.
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| Pee-eew! |
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By this time we realized we were starving so we walked along the market holding our noses due to the awful stench of the dried fish to look for our first authentic Thai meal of the trip at Coconut Palm Restaurant. Finding a place was quite an ordeal as we'd done so much research and were both very frightened by the traveler's diarrhea stories we read about. (Until this point we'd eaten only granola bars and pop-tarts.) The food was nothing special so we were just glad to quiet our tummy's.
Later that evening, after we trekked at least 10 blocks too many to hail a cab, we slept like logs. The time change had wiped us out and we were ready to call it a night as soon as we set foot in our fabulous suite - but we knew we'd be refreshed for day 2.
