Today was a busy day in Bangkok. It is amazing how helpful it is to have a guide to help you around a city. We started off walking down our hotel street to the Ferry Docks. We had no idea we were so close to the public ferry. Also you had to go down a hidden side street, so not knowing how to read Thia, I’m not confident I would have found it. One thing about Thai Ferries, they boot it. They are not the slow ferries that we have in Canada.
The Ferry took us to The Grand Palace. We had a local guide, who was kinda hard to understand. But The Grand Palace was pretty remarkable. All of it is hand tiled. It is gold leafed, and is amazing how it has stood up to the weather all these years.
After The Grand Palace, we took a private boat along the river. (Also known as the Chao Phraya River. We went along the river, until we came to a quiet canal. There we found catfish that would bring good luck. We fed them bread. The fish were smart and realized that since there is a law that you can’t fish in front of a temple, they all lived in front of a temple.
We were supposed to take an overnight train to Chiang Mai. However the train was under construction. Good thing too, because we learned that the train ride was 18 hours. Bah. So we took a plane instead. On the way to the airport we passed by the Thailand police setting up barricades against the revolutionaries. The city of Thailand was under a revolution.
The Chiang Mai airport was beautiful. Also the airplane ride was awesome. The flight was an hour, and we got fed a full meal. That would never happen on Air Canada. We checked into our hotel, then headed out to the second night of the river festival. Chiang Mai is said to have the largest parade for the river festival in all of Thailand. The parade was so cool. The whole town pulled together to put the parade on. However it got rained out. And not in a hey here is a short rain but in a OMG. There is now a flood and we have a foot of water to go through.
We got ourselves a “cab” back to our hotel. It looked like a fire truck. It was fun, but crazy – we had no idea where we were going. also our cabbie picked up some Asian school college kids. They got upset when they were not dropped off at their destination. Our cabbie did get us back safe though. And it only cost 8 dollars for a 20 min or more ride. Love Aisa.
Back at our hotel, we ordered drinks at the hotel bar. They (the hotel staff) loved us, they gave us free desserts, candy bars, keychains and roses. All for hanging out at the bar all night.
