As we were once again up early we had the foyer to ourselves, pretty much, so were able to run wild when getting our food. There was so much that I felt a table for 4 wouldn't be sufficient for holding it all. Upon cramming the last morsel of food down my throat and waddling out of the door we made our way to the bus stop to take us into the city tourist area. Feeling like we had the bus thing down we followed our route through the city, and unsurprisingly we felt we were able to see more of the cities sites this way compared to the tour we had taken a couple of days ago.
As we made our way across the river we decided to jump off a little bit early and wander into the main section on our own; in my eyes this proved to be more of a hassle than it was worth. No sooner had we disembarked than a "kind" man came up to us and offered us some help. Apparently the kings mother had died and the Grand Palace was now closed off to only Thai's so that they may pay their respects, it would open at 3pm; don't worry though, there was another tour of other temples they could help us with. It was at this point we started to call bullshit. If we made sure to get into a white topped tuk-tuk we would be safe and not ripped off. At that exact moment a white topped tuk-tuk appeared and the man offered to take us to a whole collection of temples for 20 baht, a steal! They had justification for this, as the kings mother was dead they were helping out tuk-tuk drivers by giving them all free petrol for today only, so act fast to avoid being ripped off by others.
If we were suspicious of being ripped off before, we were now certain of it; no country would willingly give away free petrol unless they have some unregulated brain injury. As a clincher we had been warned about this type of activity on that ripoff tour a couple of days ago; now as much as I hated the treatment of me and Lena on that day they did offer some sound advice, "if anyone offers a tuk-tuk for less than 100 baht they are trying to scam you". I feel like this sentiment could be extended to, "if ANYONE in Bangkok talks to you whom you don't know they are trying to scam you".
When the tuk-tuk driver finally twigged that we weren't going to use his services he got irate, finally calling us stupid for passing up such a great deal. No sooner had we rounded the corner on our way to the Giant Swing we saw that "kind" old man talking to a whole group of white topped tuk-tuk drivers; the git had the cheek to smile at us as we walked past.
Feeling rightly smug that we had thwarted the first, would-be scammer we set off with our heads held high and map in hand. Now I didn't realise this but apparently being white in Bangkok with a map out is like having a bullseye painted on your head. We had barely made it 500m before another "friendly" tuk-tuk driver parked next to us offering us some help; once again things turned ugly when he found there would be no fare today, Lena bravely returning his crude English swearing whilst I stood there and store back stone faced.
On our way to the Giant Swing this happened once more, this time the guy was being grade A retarded. I'm not sure if the That people have a poor impression of foreigners intelligence or they don't just get more retarded the further into the pollution you go. We could literally SEE the swing, no walls, no barriers, just a monument in the open and this guy was trying to convince us it was closed to foreigners until 3pm. This was getting old.
The swing itself was a little more disappointing than Lena had imagined. God bless her she had envisioned an actual 20m tall swing that people could literally swing on. In reality the swing was just a monument that sat in the middle of roundabout near to another temple. Moving on from the swing we made our way towards the Grand Palace, hoping to avoid more annoying scammers, this was not to be. I foolish didn't memorise the map before leaving the hotel meaning I had to occasionally confirm street names and get us on the right track, I wasn't doing too badly as well. Like a lion looking hungrily at a gazelle I imagine I made some scammers day, giant white boy with map looking lost; perfect. Unfortunately I was too strong for their scammer-fu, we were just saying thank you and walking right past anyone that was willing to talk to us.
Horrah! We made it to the perimeter of the Grand Palace but alas there was no obvious way to get in. To the uninitiated the Grand Palace is huuuuuuggggggggeeeee, and having to walk the perimeter was no easy feat in the midday sun. This did not deter scammers from trying their same tricks mere meters from the Palace itself. The longer we walked around the perimeter the more we started to believe that we wouldn't get in and that the scammers were in fact right; how weak of us.
Scammers were operating within a few hundred metres of the main entrance and were dressed like proper guides, and sporting the numbers for the tourist police; as if this act of honesty was somehow meant to make their words any less bullshit. I have to admire the balls to pull of this stunt: mere metres from the entrance; wearing fake tourist police uniform; standing next to an armed guard of the Grand Palace; telling us we wouldn't get in despite the stream of people clearly moving into the Palace.
With the scammers now behind us we moved into Palace and were told Lena would need to cover her legs as a sign of respect. The Grand Palace thoughtfully provided a service where we could hire clothes for this but AMAZINGLY people were trying to scam us here as well, the goddamn staff! We were told there would be a 1 hour wait (lies) and that we could hire the clothes across the road for 30 baht. A mere 10 minutes later Lena and I were wandering towards the inner section of the temple, feeling safe in the knowledge that there couldn't POSSIBLY be any more scammers within the temple.
After all the build-up of getting into the Palace the actual place itself cannot really compete. A massive collection of photos taken by Lena, myself, and kind passersby paint a wonderful portrait of the palace and all the various different sections of it. The pictures also show it to be beautifully brightly, this is due entirely to us showing up at the hottest time of the day when everyone else was wandering around the Palace jumping between shade like a collection of brave vampires.
Having spent a few hours wandering around the Palace taking in all of the olden beauties, shiny buildings and UV we moved off from the Grand Palace with the intention of catching a river boat down towards chinatown. On the way we sampled some hawker food and drink. It was as we were wandering around, slightly lost, we were approached by someone offering us to go and see a free museum. Being as cautious as ever we were presently surprised to find it was on the up and up. The wonderfully kept, and air-conditioned, museum told the history of Thailand and how it had amazingly avoided invasion during a time in Asia when you could pop out for breakfast and find a new government in place when you returned.
Feeling slightly better about our fellow man we headed off with fresh directions and a purpose; river bus. Although trying to find the river bus amongst the far more extortionate river taxi's was proving to be slightly more difficult, but after asking someone who wasn't approaching us first we managed to find the right place. Cruising down the river was wonderful, with the wind in our hair and soothing our obvious sunburn we relaxed as we waited for our stop.
Stepping off into chinatown was quite interesting, as we were nowhere near. To add to this chinatown didn't open until 6pm, so we were left to wander around the streets of chinatown for a few hours sampling bits and pieces where people had opened early. It was at this point that Lena decided it was time for a proper Thai massage, something I wasn't really interested in. For the next hour Lena was bent, twisted, and massaged in ways that would normally be reserved for pretzels; whilst all of this was going on I had my feet up downstairs being served tea by the owner of the place :). Once again we stepped bleary eyed into the dark streets of Bangkok, chinatown was really open and in full swing. We sampled some octopus skewers on our way out, the heat had finally gotten to the both of us and we just wanted to cool down.
Getting back proved much more simple than the last time; I was finally getting acquainted with the streets, shame we were leaving tomorrow. When stepping through the threshold of the hotel we just stood and admired the air conditioning for a few moments before settling for a couple of hours in the pool. It was whilst in the pool that I discovered I had the mother of all blisters, a punishment for wandering the streets for far too long...
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