My past few days (really long and boring)

I've managed to see most of the sights in Bangkok considering I only have a window of a few hours that I'm not too exhausted to walk around. After my first day of going to the mall I wanted to see some real sights. I planned to get to 2 or 3 temples that are in the same area the first day and then maybe the museum, and set out around 7 to try to beat the heat. I went first to the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew (the Temple of the Emerald Buddha) which are on the same grounds.

To get there I had to take the Skytrain to the river, then get on a ferry boat the rest of the way, which all took about an hour and a half (took me a while to figure out how to get on the right boat). I got to the Grand Palace and was so hot that I just started taking a bunch of pictures so I could get around as fast as possible. I couldn't even take the time to read the brochure I got so I never really knew what I was looking at except that it was really pretty. Then I went in to look at the Emerald Buddha which is apparently Thailand's most sacred Buddha figure. It was fine, but really small and at the top of a podium. I looked around the palace a bit more, but was so done with the heat that I just left and got in a cab and went to the first place I could think of that was cool. That was the mall, where I ate some ice cream.

After cooling off for a couple hours, I remembered there was something nearby I wanted to see so I walked over to the Jim Thompson house. He was a guy that came to Thailand in the early 1900's and revitalized the Thai silk industry which was apparently pretty much nonexistent at the time. He built a huge teak home that was beautiful and filled with lots of really nice antiques. He lived there until he disappeared in Malaysia in 1967 (I will try not to disappear there as well). That was enough for the day, so I went back to the hostel and hung out with some guy that taught english in Korea.

The next day I went back to the same area as the grand palace to see the other major sight near it, Wat Pho (the temple of the reclining Buddha).

This Buddha was waaay more impressive, it's gold and apparently 150 feet long and fills up the entire building it's housed in. It didn't take too long to see it, so I walked over to the National Museum. After visiting, I thought it was pretty small to be SE Asia's largest museum, but it turns out it consists of several buildings and I only went in one. Oh well, I don't like museums thaaat much anyways. I came back to my hostel area to have some lunch/dinner and continued my non-eating of Thai food by having quiche. I really keep trying to eat Thai because it's delicious, but mostly they just sell it on the street and I really like sitting down in AC.

Today I started out at Vimanmek Palace which is the largest teak mansion in the world and used to be used by the royal family in the early 1900's. On my way in I saw this guy crossing the street (any idea what he is?):

You weren't allowed to take pictures inside but they had some crazy things, like a room full of elephant tusks and 2 umbrella holders made of actual elephant's feet (kind of gross).

Afterwards, I tried to get a taxi to the Royal Barge Museum which wasn't so far, but the dude wanted 200 Baht which was like 4 times more than what it would be with the metre. I finally found a driver that took a lot of coaxing into using the metre. He kept saying there was a traffic jam, he needed more money, but the trip took like 8 minutes. They just all want my money. You also couldn't take pictures of the barges, but they were pretty neat. They were built for different Thai kings and had very ornate carvings on the front, like this:

There were only 8 barges to see so that didn't take long, and allowed me to start my fun getting home adventure. The museum was on the river, but not a pier where ferries come, only boats to hire personally. I tried walking to the next pier but got lost so got a taxi. I really tried explaining where I was going, which was the main train station so I didn't think it was too hard, and even showed the driver a map and pointed where I wanted to go. It should have been a 2 minute drive. He drove across the river away from it, so I asked where he was going. He didn't know. He kept looking at the map even when the light was green and everyone honked at him. He kept acting like he knew where he was going, but I was getting exasperated. He tried to take me to a police station, but I said I didn't need the police, I just wanted to get out, but he kept driving. Finally he stopped so I got out and paid him some, but less than he wanted and more than I should have considering he went in circles. I then found the pier, and waited for a boat. I got on, and sat down. Some guy from San Francisco sat down and started talking to me, saying he lived there and to be careful, everyone here smiles a lot but they're not always kind. Then he asked where I was going and I told him, and he said I was going the wrong way and we'd already gone for like 20 minutes. So, I got off and waited for the next boat going the other way, which was a fun hour long ride back. Every so often some water would spray up and it felt nice and refreshing, but it's pretty brown looking. So in all it took me 3 hours to get back from the barge museum, but I'm trying to consider it a fun taxi tour and river boat cruise of Bangkok that only cost like $2.