The entrance to the Wat Pho temple was quite cheap but the ticket for the Grand Palace was quite expensive 500 Bath (about 12 euros)... and they have rules... yes... decency rules apply... i.e. women need to cover their sholders and men and women need to cover their legs.
I was lucky because I was carrying the sleeves to zip back to my trousers so they become long trousers instead of shorts...I would be depriving the world of the view to my sexy hairy legs though... but I thought the temple was worth the sacrify...
You may be wondering why would I carry the trouser sleeves and a thin jumper in my rucksuck on a 35C+ day... well... for some reason unknown to me, Thai people love the air-con a full thrust so instead of regulating the temperature to a nice 21C they always put it at 17 or even lower so after a few minutes in a shopping centre you do need a thin jumper or end up catching a cold like I did on my first visit to Bangkok some years back...
In any case, if you didn't happen to have some with you (like most people) you had the option to purchase a fashionable pair of thai decorated trousers by the entrance... and some couples were even buying matching trousers... I'm afraid I didn't had the guts to take a picture of that as someone would probably end up aggravated by the odd guy taking pictures of peoples trousers...
The Grand Palace covers a great extension... and I know that because I had to walk all around it when I was looking for the Wat Pho temple... and it took me 30 minutes...
One of the things that Susana told me to check out was the Angkor Wat replica. They do have an exact replica of Angkor Wat at a scale... of course...
Not as impressive as the original but it gives you a good indication about size and scale of the real one.
The statues here were quite impressive as well
and there were some impressive frescos as well... I'm guessing depicting some important events in Thai history
and the final bits of the temple...
By the time I finished it was 15:30 or so and I was quite peckish so I thought I would just get another taxi and go to the nearby shopping centre to have a late lunch and perhaps watch another movie in a nice and air condicioned place... because I wasn't sure how much more heat I could take after spending 4-5 hours walking in the sun at 35C... I suppose it goes without saying that at this point I was dreaming of all sorts of cool drinks with lots and lots of ice...
Got out of the temple walls back to the street and inmediately sppoted a queue of taxis, great! I thought... fresh iced cool lemonade in less than 20 minutes :-)
Got into the taxi, told him where I wanted to go knowing full well that with the taximetre it would cost about 80 Bath... his response... 400 Bath... I choked first... thought I didn't understand correctly with his thick accent and repeated 400? he affirmed with his head and I just laugh.... then I said 100 and it was his turn to laugh... out loud... he didn't even tried to reduce it a little bit or anything... so in that instant it became clear to me that these taxis waiting outside the temple were just a tourist trap... 400 Bath wouldn't have ruined me but it felt like robbery at gun point so I opened the door and left... I could still hear the taxi driver laughing as I was closing the door... They must be making so much money out of the tourists...
Okay...plan B...walk outside the touristic area and stop a taxi... so got into a 7-11 and bought some cool lemon juice and did another half an hour of walking under the scorching sun until I couldn't see any tourist and stopped a taxi... told him where I wanted to go and he said 200... okay only double I can live with that... Cool drink and a nice meal 20 minutes away. :-)
After the meal I went to watch a movie and then, just because I'm worth it went for a one hour Thai massage that hurt like hell and then just on my way to the hotel I decided to get a one hour foot massage just because I was still worth it. :-)
The following day I was picking up Alex and Konrad at the airport on our way to what we thought was a villa near the beach in Jomtien... but that's another story for another day. :-)
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