Day 20 - 22.10.2016
Today I enjoyed a little sleep in an catching up on the blog before I headed out towards the waterfront. My original plan was to get to the waterfront and catch one of the ferries to the other side, maybe even book a tour on the river. But nothing went as planned today. Nothing.
My tuk tuk driver brought me to a place at the waterfront. However no port / docking barge or the like in sight. Instead I am underneath a bridge that heads to the other side of the river. So I choose to scrap my plans and walk over the bridge instead and perhaps go visit the museum of the royal barges while I was over there.
The view from the bridge, and the bridge itself, are quite stunning and I enjoyed a bit of a breeze since it was around lunch time and the sun was beating down.
I got down from the bridge and knew I would have to walk a little „cross country“ or off the usual tourist paths. I walked through a neighbourhood with little stupas and pagodas that tourists will most likely never get to see.
I eventually managed to get through to a larger road and was instantly engulfed by the black mass. All these people were coming back from the palace where they had paid their respects to the king. I was still not really on the tourist paths just yet and so I asked my way around to eventually find the museum of the royal barges. By this time I had had it and just wanted to go to some sort of place, knowing that my group meeting was at 17:00.
Since everyone returning from the Royal Palace was wanting a ride back home, there were no taxis available and so I continued to the museum of royal barges in the hopes of finding more tourists there to help me along. I must say, so far reading maps and giving direction hasn’t really worked when talking with the Thais, as I get directed into the wrong areas, with taxi drivers don’t really get to the right place or have to walk for ages to get there.
Anyhow. The royal barges are used in ceremonies along the river. The were restorated after intensive bombing had destroyed most of them, as King Bhumibol didn’t want to loose that tradition.
These barges are absolutely beautiful and incredibly long.
The uniform of the different rowers of these barges and their responsibilities.
A beautiful very old barge that unfortunately broke in two during the bombings. Unlike the others the embellishments are not just contained in the varnish, but are actually carved or inserted into the wooden parts.
I was actually alone at the museum and so there was not help from other tourists. I left the museum and finally managed to find a taxi driver, constantly looking at my watch, knowing that I had about 2 hours before I needed to be back at the hotel. Since the taxi driver didn’t want to take me back to my hotel due to all the traffic, I asked him whether he could take me to Wat Arun. (The temple with the scaffolding) From there I knew that there were ferry barges and most definitely more tourists.
I got there and the temple was beautiful! I can only imagine how it would look like without the scaffolding!
After a quick walk around the Wat I found myself a ferry to the other side. - Unfortunately knowing that I would end up right in front of the royal palace again. But hey, the ferry ride was lovely and being close to the water was refreshing!
And so the next leg of my journey home continued. I walked quite a while to get into a region that actual had empty taxis or tuk tuks. I took the next tuk tuk and off we went. Unfortunately not very far, seeing as there was another traffic jam. The police had closed off another street and so there was not passing through. Which is also why my tuk tuk driver pretty much threw me out of the tuk tuk. (After about 45 minutes stuck in traffic!) I found my way to the democracy monument, which you can see below.
I kept walking. I also took a wrong turn and walked further than I had to, it started raining. BUT –I did manage to find a tuk tuk driver, and I was „only“ 20 minutes late. With my whole odyssee in consideration, I think thats not too bad...
We had our first group meeting and then it was the start of my eight day food tour, which we put straight to the test when we headed out for dinner, stopping at several different places to try street food.
This is beef saté at a muslim little restaurant. They were delicious.
Next up we headed to a famous restaurant with the locals to have some proper Thai food.
We ordered several things to share such as stir-fried crab in curry powder (the dish on the right).
Stir-Fried kale with crispy pork (on the left)
An omelett with crab:
Stir-fried spicy pork:
As well as some Tom Yum Kung soup to share.
For our desert we headed to another famous place, where pretty much all the Thai people go. Here you get sweet toast with a custard creme. In our case with pandan custard. Very sweet but actually quite nice!
After desert we headed back home. However getting back was not as easy as expected. There was a candle light service on at 22:00 and so people were flocking towards the royal palace. At a large junction near the democracy monument we were told to stop on our side, the road was closed off and everyone was asked to kneel down. No foot was to be placed onto the street, no photos to be taken and hundreds and hundreds of people just waited. It turns out that we were waiting for the crown princess to pass by who had just been at the temple to be with her late father. It was so fascinating seeing everyone kneel down on the side of the road to show their respect. Not really something you would ever see in a Western country. After that we could just get up and carry on walking back to the hotel.
