Saturday 8th October 2022
Our jet lag is definitely not improving! Despite setting the alarm for 9am, we didn’t get up until gone 11am – just can’t seem to get to sleep until the early hours of the morning. And getting up is definitely not helped by the fact that our hotel bedroom has no windows, so even in the middle of the day it’s pitch black. No matter, we’re not in a rush, and after getting up we head straight for the Grand Palace (our second attempt, after yesterday’s was thwarted by the friendly local/tuk tuk salesman).
The Grand palace was huge and very impressive! It took a while to wander around, admiring the various temples – the photos certainly don’t do it justice.
We had lunch at Saiwatana, one of the restaurants in the street just along from the Grand Palace. Chicken with cashew nuts and crispy pork with chilli and Thai basil – both delicious!
Rain had been threatening since early afternoon, so we thought the best plan would be to get a boat down the river before the thunderstorm started. That didn’t go quite to plan. We paid our 5 baht (seemed too cheap, but you never know), boarded the boat, and set off….. across to the other bank where it terminated. Oh well, we were now right by the Wat Arun (or Temple of Dawn) so thought we might as well make the most of the opportunity and pay the temple a visit.
After visiting the temple, we could feel the wind picking up. The thunderstorm was due 2 hours ago, so getting closer to home might be wise! Boat back across the river it is then. When we got to the other side, I was very surprised by how much the water level had risen whilst we were walking around Wat Arun – disembarking involved wet feet!
After having so many offers from enthusiastic tuk tuk drivers, we decided to finally relent and took one back to Khaosan Road. It was quite a fun experience, and very impressive the way he was able to effortlessly weave in and out of traffic!
We walked down Khaosan Road, in search of a nice looking bar. It was much quieter than I’d expected, although there were still the usual vendors with insects on sticks and over enthusiastic tailors and massage salespeople!
There weren’t any bars that particularly stood out, so we decided to go back to Rambuttri Alley, which (in my opinion) has a slightly nicer ambiance. We had a few beers in a bar, as the rain finally started to fall. We’d had a lateish, pretty filling lunch, so didn’t bother with dinner – a few beers and some prawn crackers was just what we needed to end the day!
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 