Thailand day 2

DAY 2 – BANGKOK, SIGHTSEEING (TEMPLES AND GRAND PALACE)

Today we saw a lot of Buddha´s. We went to see the golden Buddha, the reclining Buddha and the Grand palace. On the way to the locations we saw some of the city) mostly from traffic jams) Chinatown looked pretty interesting, smaller streets and a lot of little shop fronts, flower sellers etc. Since we went to the palace, we also went through the government district. (ministry buildings and lots of pictures of the king)
The palace itself was very beautiful and … very golden. I preferred the more subdued monastery where the reclining Buddha was located. There were a lot of Chinese stone statues. Lots of Japanese tourists as well, all to see the Buddha. I never realized that the Japanese where that Buddhist. Our guide wasn´t bad, he told us quite a lot (never stopped leading us through the temples, rushing us without really doing so, if you know what I mean) but sometimes I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I think it was mutual, since every time we tried to say something to him; he either just nodded and said yes, or said the complete opposite. In the end we saw quite a lot of temples, for which we had to take of our shoes very single time. Pretty releasing to throw of your shoes and walk into a temple barefoot! Also our guide bowed on his knees every time we entered a temple, honoring the Buddha. A lot of people did this, some of these sites being true pilrgrimages.

After we saw the tourist hot spots our guide hat some `shopping` stops for us: a jewelry factory and a Indian tailor. I don´t know what kind of deal our guides´ company made with these businesses, but we were not buying. The jewelry factory was pretty interesting though: you are welcomed by a row of beautifully dressed women, welcomed in and given a complementary welcome soft drink, then you and a legion of other tourist hare hurdled into the room where workers sit and make the jewelry (some guy in a suit and a nametag leads you through the room, telling you about the craftsmanship of the jewelers, but in essence only tells you how great the product is) the next room offers the men place to sit an drink coffee, while the women go into the next room to buy the jewelry. That room was huge, with a fish tank in the middle of the room with baby sharks. Silvia and Veronika did have a look at the produce, while constantly being berated by the suited nametags. Everything they even looked at was quickly pulled out of the display case, hoping for a quick sale. But we weren´t buying. Silvia bought a scarf, but that was it. We went out of the suit shop even faster. We were back at 3.

In the evening after sunset we went for a quick walk outside our hotel. We are located in the Nana district (our street is apparently Arabic, lots of Arabic shops, halal food and doner) close the various shopping districts and near most of the embassy. Maybe we walk to the Dutch embassy tomorrow. The city is pretty interesting on street level. Lots of little shop fronts and stands on the sidewalks with people hawking cheap trinkets, t-shirts and bootleg DVD’s, but also tourist cafes, big shopping centers and chain stores like starbucks and 7 Eleven. People on the street where evenly divided between locals and tourists, both western and Arabic. We walked to the nana sky-train station and back and ate at the hotel again. This time I had the Thai food.

The people are all very nice, polite and friendly to the point of being submissive. I can´t help but feeling like a complete outsider. You just never know what the people really are like. Then again, all the people you meet are in the customer service industry and are thought to be super polite and attentive to your every move (in the hotel restaurant you just had to look at them and the trip over themselves to get to you) As a westerner it makes you very uncomfortable. Especially when you´re from Holland, where you are used to shitty service.

Tomorrow we go see the floating market outside of Bangkok, with the same guy that took us today. Yes, he got us to sign up with him for another day.