Where you go now?

Mike enjoying soup for breakfast
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A lot more settled yesterday on day two - Breakfast = Asian at 8am and it is great food(see photos).

We took the river taxi to near the Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha (river is very brown but at least a bit cooler travelling this way) but this is where the morning took a turn. As mentioned in the previous blog - we got "scammed but not ripped off". It all happened very fast and before we knew it we went on a tour of the city for a total of 40baht. We knew it meant we would be visiting "export centres" and "top ten" suit shops but we just played along for a few minutes in them and then moved on. We went to a series of Wats (temple or place of worship, where Mike started saying "what wat is what" which is not very funny to me!!). Even got complimentary water at one place. It was actually great fun travelling around the city by tuk tuk and for 40 baht total a bargain!

knocked out with a flurry of blows to the head and stretched off

Asian @ 8am
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Anyway we got back to the grand palace a couple of hours later - it really is grand and beautiful. Also adjacent to the Grand Palace is Wat Pho which houses the reclining buddha - absolutely massive (see photo). A funny side to the grand palace visit was having to hire long pants.... I thought I had read in the lonely planet book that you need to wear closed shoes, sleeves and pants/skirt to cover the knees. We actually had to have full length on so Mike hired these groovy trousers and I actually had quite a nice sarong. We were quite annoyed at the number of people we saw in the palace grounds though who were still wearing thongs and girls with skirts not covering knees! It made for an interesting experience.

Monks at one of the Wats we visited
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Caught the river ferry back to near where we are staying (cheaper than tuk tuk rip off) and got caught in an absolute downpour!! Soaked as we got off the boat and then ran around the streets and alleys to get back, but I eventually got us there (maybe that extra 20 baht for the tuk tuk would have been worth it but this was far more of an experience!)

Last night we went to the Muay Thai (Thai boxing) at a nearby stadium. The undercards were average but the main event was far more exciting with one of the thai boxers knocked out with a flurry of blows to the head and stretched off much to the excitement of the thai punters who filled the crowd. As a side note we (me, Mike & Mark) were sitting alone in the marked foreigner section! Quite a late finish so "home" for some rice and then sleep.