August 6
Today Steve and I took our own little excursion to Wat Arun (a temple). We were supposed to take a tour of both the Grand Palace and the temple, but when we went to the two travel agencies near the apartment they
were both closed. So instead of turning back we decided to go it alone.
We walked to the BTS Sky Train at Terminal 21 and successfully bought our tickets to ride to Siam. The only reason we decided (really I decided-Steve
leaves it up to me) to stop at Siam was because it was a transfer station and I didn’t know where to go from there. I figured there would be a travel agency around somewhere. I was wrong. However, when we got off at Siam I found a tourist
information booth. The woman there gave me a map, told me we could do it alone, and said to catch bus 508 across the street. She said if we took it to the last stop we could find our way. The problem is that we never made it to the bus stop.
I made the mistake of keeping the map out in the open and all the “tuk tuk” drivers stopped us to give their best price to drive us there. I was so confused that we took refuge in the MBK shopping mall (seven stories filled with everything
from electronics to furniture to antiques). We got lost in the mall. There was no rhyme or reason to where the escalators were. The up escalators and down escalators were far apart and unmarked. But we eventually made it all the way
up and then all the way down again, stopping along the way to window shop. When we finally got to the ground level I was able to ask about getting to the Grand Palace and Wat Arun. I was told that we should take a cab. So that is what we
did. But, before you get in a cab you have to negotiate the price. The cab driver told us 300 bhat, but I said no. So he came back with a price of 200 bhat. We got in the cab and trusted him to get us there. About 30 minutes later
we were dropped off on a street corner. We were a bit disoriented but when we looked up we saw the prang (spire) of the temple and we headed in that direction.
We finally made it to the entrance, paid our 50 bhat each to enter
and were amazed at what we saw. The link to the Wat Arun site is below.
http://watarun.net/
Steve climbed all the way to the top but I climbed only halfway up. The stairs
were so steep I couldn’t look down without getting dizzy. By the time we toured the temple grounds we were wiped out. The heat and humidity got to us. We decided to just head back to the apartment. We would tour the Grand Palace
on another day.
So now we headed back to the main road to hail a taxi, but what we got instead was a “tuk tuk” (pronounced took, took). A tuk tuk is a 3 wheeled open vehicle – like a motorized rickshaw. I
was hesitant but Steve was thrilled. So we climbed in and took off for a 30-minute ride of a lifetime (something like being on a roller coaster without a seatbelt or harness). I have posted a video below from my point of view.
We ended up
safely back to Siam where we caught the BTS Sky Train to Terminal 21, had a late lunch, and walked back to the apartment. Six hours after our departure we were “home” and ready for a nap.