Last 1/2 day in Bangkok

B and J in their tuk tuk with their driver, Mr. T.
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We leave today for Chiang Mai!  I guess we'll see how the Chiang Mai mosquitoes are soon.

Apparently, sometimes I look Korean, sometimes I look Japanese, one time even 1/2 Japanese.  Never do I look Chinese, at least to the Thai people who have shared their comments.  Also does the English word "half" sound like the Thai word for "lady boy?"  We got into some confusion with Brian saying that he was half Chinese and that lead to the taxi driver thinking that Brian was a "lady boy."

...out here, decent is still really delicious. And expensive is still cheap.

Very ornate place for waiting out the rain.
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Okay, what have we been seeing.  We spent our first morning (Monday) helping a tuk tuk driver earn his living.  We told him that we wanted to see the Grand Palace and asked if he could take us there.  He told us that the Grand Palace wasn't open until 1 pm so we had time to see these other places he was "recommending."  Big lie!  The Grand Palace was open all day.  It was just a trick to convince us to go on his trip.  But he said that he'd take us for 5 baht/person, so it wasn't very costly money wise for us.  5 baht is maybe 40 cents USD.  But we saw some temples, so-so.  Then we were taken to a bunch of travel agencies and some tailors where he could get commission - because it was not yet 1 pm and we still had time before the Grand Palace "opened."  He even explicitly asked us to look like we were real customers so that he could get the commission.  Although, I wonder if he did told us that to actually make us more likely to purchase something.  Well, we wound up hiring a car, 600 baht/person ($20), for the next day to go to Ayuthuya, which is 1.5 hrs outside of Bangkok.  And B and M decided to have suits tailored.  The moral of the story is that we were scammed, but the driver was pleasant and it was an opportunity to take a tuk tuk around the city, and it was somewhat useful for us.

Figures on temple. I tried holding this pose and it's pretty tiring.
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The Grand Palace and temples in that area are pretty grand.  I can't upload photos just yet, but hopefully, I'll have time to upload some photos of this.  Same for Ayuthuya.

On Monday night, we tried to find this restaurant that B found recommended on Chowhound... a roti-centric restaurant.  It was closed by the time we got there.  So sad.

On a slightly related note, though I don't really want to explain why this is related to my previous thought, we've been doing a lot of walking around Bangkok.  It's an interesting way to see the city, but in this heat and humidity, it's very tiring.  These past few days, we've been getting very exhausted by dinner time that we settle for any place to eat that looks decent.  Although out here, decent is still really delicious.  And expensive is still cheap.

I ate mangosteens and apple bananas for breakfast today.  I bought the mangosteens somewhere in Chinatown and J bought the bananas near there as well and then we swapped some mangosteens for some bananas.  Good deal.  The mangosteens were delicious.  Lychee-like in texture but the flavor is brighter and more citrusy.

This entry seems like a random collection of things as I remember them rather than some organized and flowing narrative.

We got Thai massages yesterday at the Wat Po Massage School.  (220 baht/person for 1/2 hour).  I'm putting the prices in for any random people who are planning trips to Thailand and are poking around this RealTravel site.  You're welcome!  It was mostly very relaxing and enjoyable.  There were a few parts that were a little on the painful side, but a mostly good painfulness.

Off to meet up with Brian and Jenni.  I'll fill in these initially photo-less entries with photos later.