Chip Pride: Day 1...or the day I finally fell for a tourist scam

My hostel is pretty awful. It's clean and secure, which is a plus. But the front desk isn't helpful at all about finding tours or places to go. I asked where to find the Royal Palace my first morning and she was like just turn left (it was a lot more complicated than that). They also just told me to find a place to eat on the tourist road...and it turned out to be super gross. I'm excited to move on tomorrow to a less crowded city (Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand) and be in a REAL hostel where I can meet people.

First tuk tuk

Instead of walking super long distances when I don't know which direction anything is in because Thailand doesn't like street signs or really any signs that would make life easier for a tourist, I chose to ride in Tuk Tuks. These are terrifyingly open vehicles with no doors or seatbelts that weave in and out of traffic at a harrying pace. It's worth the $2 or $3 dollars to not walk 5 or 6 kilometers.

So my day started out at the Royal Palace, after a long and meandering adventure thanks to the hostel's "Go left" directions. The Royal family is still a thing in Thailand, although not political. My tour guide said they're the "soul" of Thailand, which a pretty way of putting it. It cost 500 Baht to get in, which is less than $20. There's a bunch of tour guides outside offering tours for an additional 500 Baht, but naaaaaah. I can admire things on my own. And low and behold, there are free English tours. It started an hour after I got in, but that gave me time to take a ton of pictures and marvel at everything!

Let me tell you, I have been in some of the grandest churches of Europe, but these buildings are the most exquisite and intricate pieces of architecture I have ever laid my eyes on. I cannot put into words the beauty of it (I put a bunch of palace pictures at the end for your perusal).

Emerald Buddha

Since the king still lives on the premise, there are active military everywhere, including giving tours! The tour guide was hysterical. He made a lot of fun of certain ethnic groups of tourists that had taken over the grounds...and yelled...and touched things with "Do not touch signs". There was a younger couple on the tour too and they're heading to the same city as me tomorrow so we exchanged info to meet up for dinner sometime this weekend.

Part of the Royal Palace is seeing Emerald Buddha. This is the only temple in Thailand without monks because it's the king's temple. Emerald Buddha is actually made of Jade, but back in the day when monks discovered him, they didn't know what jade was. Since it looked like emerald, it got named emerald.

After Emerald Buddha, I wanted to see a different temple with the "Reclining Buddha." According to my less than helpful map, it was just outside the palace gates. Five people gave me five different directions, so I ended up just wandering for a while. I walked through some random markets of Thai people buying food and other stuff. Finally, I wandered into a random temple. A Thai lady waved me in and started talking to me. Her English was broken, but good enough to tell me some small things about Buddhist prayer and to give me suggestions on where to spend my time. She said it was a Buddhist holiday so the temple I wanted to see was closed until 3 p.m. She offered to find me a tuk tuk to take me to Thai Pier, but I decided to walk around a little more.

This is where life gets a little sketchy. I kept walking and asked a guy for directions. He, again, reiterated that there was a holiday and my plan to see the temple would have to wait. Since the lady before had mentioned it, I figured it was legit. So when he said his tuk tuk could take me to Thai Pier, I said sure. Remember, my hostel sucked at giving me any ideas for what to do. I knew that I wanted to see that temple, and that was it at that point. In retrospect, I don't think there was a Buddhist holiday and I could've just gone to the temple. Talking to Jeff last night, I realized that when I was walking up to the Royal Palace, a tuk tuk driver tried to convince me that it was closed and that time I just kept walking (he didn't mention a holiday though). Oh well, live and learn.

In the mean time, I got to go on a pretty neat boat tour of some of Bangkok's canals. The driver went super fast which put a breeze in my face and actually the first time I've felt comfortable the entire time I've been in Thailand (I HATE THE HUMIDITY). It showed a different and much bigger part of Bangkok than I could've seen on my own in a day. Most of the houses on this route were very dilapidated, but most of them still had very beautiful altars of sorts for Buddha. The price wasn't extremely scammy, it checked out against the "official" tours. The scam was more just an allocation f time. I'll be better prepared in the next city cause I've got a good hostel and it's a LOT smaller of a city.

After the boat ride, I was right next to the temple I wanted to see, which worked out perfectly. When I read about "temples" before Asia, I figured it's be like visiting a church in Europe. You walk in, look around, say "cool beans" and leave. These temples are actually multi-building complexes. Sure, there's the main temple that hosts the Buddha of interest, but many times there are ancillary temples, housing for monks, gardens, etc. It's a ton of fun to walk around the grounds! Compared to Emerald Buddha, the reclining Buddha is HUMONGOUS! Not even joking. I was kind of disappointed at the tiny size of Emerald Buddha, but this made up for it!

Within the Reclining Buddha's temple complex, is a set of pavilions where the first instructions for Thai Massage were written down. So when I came across the Thai Massage School inside the temple grounds, it was unquestionable whether I'd get a massage or not. For less than $15, I got a full hour long massage. I don't think I've ever experienced such pain AND relief/relaxation ever in my life. It was like really awesome massage mixed with really intense stretching. At multiple points she was kneeling on my back or my legs and putting a LOT of force into it. Morning update: I feel, sore. So very very sore. All over the place. 10/10 would do it again.

At this point, I'm no longer fearful of the tuk tuks. I embraced the save my feet and sweat luxury of a $3 "taxi" ride AND I got pretty good at negotiating prices. Still have a ways to go, but I got one guy down a full 100 Baht (about $3).

I spent some time wandering the shopping street and bought a cool pair of pants (pictures to come at a later date). All in all, Bangkok was interesting, but way too big for me. Tomorrow, I'm heading to a much smaller city in Northern Thailand for the weekend. I'm pretty excited to be in a real hostel and start making travel buddies!

Bonus Pictures!