Thailand! Doing Our Own Thing

Day 4: After we heard from the tour leaders that our last day in Thailand would be spent at a snake farm and ANOTHER mall, my group decided to forfeit all of those FUN activities and go to the Grand Palace (where the king lives). It took a while to get there and it was SO SO SO SO HOT, but I'm glad we did it.

The ferry ride was very cool. I felt more like I was seeing THAILAND as opposed to being driven around and dropped off at various places in the hopes that we would buy stuff. Everything felt more authentic (like riding a ferry with Thai locals instead of a tour bus with other Hong Kong people) and the sights during the ride were very cool.



Also, the ferry was ghetto in that instead of it docking and having to put down a little bridge or whatever for people to get off/on, you just hopped over the ferry wall. And to prevent the noticeably dirty water from splashing on you there's this ghetto blue tarp attached to a rope that the passengers sitting in the side seats have to pull down. I loved it. Though the tarp is barely effective.

The riverbank was a lot like the side of the road on my trip to China: lots of little shacks lined up with the inhabitants' clothes hanging outside to dry. Very cool. Though no pics :(

So after the ferry ride we walked for what seemed like forever to get to the Grand Palace. I love the super wide roads in Bangkok:

There's huge pictures of the king EVERYWHERE. But maybe it's because we were on the way to his house.

So after the most grueling walk in my recent history we made it to the king's house! Here's a bunch of pictures:











I was a bit disgruntled because of the weather, so I didn't really try to take any amazing pictures. I regret that now, of course. :(

Of course all the buildings start to look the same (especially when it's 100+ degrees out), and I don't know if the buildings are for any specific purpose other than to look nice, but the architecture is what you think of when you think "Thailand", no?

When you visit the Grand Palace, you're not allowed to come in wearing shorts/showing your ankles/wearing tight pants/tanktops/etc. for religious reasons (I DEFINITELY would've worn shorts if I could've). Also, when you see the Emerald Buddha you have to take your shoes off, and you're not allowed to point your feet at the Buddha or take pictures of it. It was definitely very cool though. Very shiny.

After wandering around the Grand Palace for an hour or so, we had to head back to the mall the rest of the tour was at so we could catch a ride back to the hotel on the tour bus. We took another ferry from the Grand Palace to the more commercial area:



I kind of love ferry rides.

We had to take the BTS Skytrain, which is the Bangkok (Mass) Transport System, to get to the mall after the ferry ride. Looks a lot like BART. Except nicer.

BTS Skytrain ticket.

Here, have a cool Thailand building picture:


We made it back to the mall safe and sound, and were taken back to the hotel at around 7 and were left to do our own thing. We went back to the night market for some last chance Thai shopping. We spent half a day in the Bangkok International Airport waiting for our return trip to Hong Kong the next morning. Not very interesting.

So that concludes my Thailand trip. I'll probably be back later for some last thoughts, impressions, etc...