Thailand Trip (Day 26)

Day 26:
Mike and I woke up early today to see some of the major sites in Bangkok (it was a lot more restful at the new hostel). After a nice breakfast of muesli, yogurt, and fruit, we headed off to the Grand National Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. On the way we were approached be several tuk-tuk drivers who tried to tell us that the sites were closed for a plethora of reasons (monks praying, King's B-day, etc.) and tried to sell us side excursions. Since none of the stories matched up we avoided them and cleverly followed a large German tour group to cross the busy Bangkok intersections. As we headed to the palace we met a man in the Thai military who was on his day off. He told us that the Palace and Buddha were open and that if anyone told us otherwise they we bluffing. After thanking him we proceeded happy to know that it was open. Thinking that we had avoided all the scamers we headed towards what looked like a group of people feeding birds. As we crossed into the birds a man put a bag of corn in my hand. I asked, "how much" and he said "good luck, good luck!" After throwing a few bags he started demanding some outrageous amount of money. It ended up costing around five bucks, but I was pretty pissed since that is quite a bit in Thailand. I paid it to avoid a disturbance. Mike was scammed as well for about the same amount. Soon after that birds we arrived at the Royal Palace. It was impressive and massive. Masses of tourists, militarily personnel, monks, and school children moved around the grounds. All of the building we brightly covered and covered with sparkling gold ranging from 50-100% of a building's exterior. The Temple of the Emerald Buddha was my personal favorite. We had to take off our shoes and sit on the floor once were were inside. The room was filled with hundreds of people making the trip to see the Buddha. The room was extremely decorated, but the Buddha itself was relatively small. It had a long history was was over 1,000 years old. It had spent time in Laos and had been moved all over Thailand. After visiting the temple we headed to the throne room which is stilled used today by Rama IX. From there, were headed to the collection of regalia and coins at the same time that a massive army unit was visiting it. It was a bit crowded, but impressive. Nearly everything was made from gems and gold. Leaving the palace a bit "golded out" we headed to downtown Bangkok to meet up with Chong and Jerlyn. We spent the afternoon with Chong as our unofficial tour guide for downtown Bangkok. He showed us stores with delicious food, impressive malls, and incredibly cheap jeans and shorts. At the end of the day Chong gave us directions on how to return to Kao San by public transit. We headed onto the BTS Skytrain (a glorified version of Chicago's EL that rides up to what seemed like 8 stories in the air). From the Skyttrain we transferred to a River Express-boat for a journey of 13 river stops. The boats move up and down the main river in Bangkok using whistles to control all boarding, docking, and control procedures. After the impressive trek across the city we headed back to Kao San for Mike's last night. The main highlight of the night was seeing a Japanese man playing Smash Mouth almost perfectly. I recorded him and he stopped mid-song to say "Konichiwa!," and wave. Tomorrow Mike leaves early at 4:30 am and I head to Kamchamenburi a bit later.