The Grand Palace

Bangkok, Thailand -- Day 2

Much like last night, we headed out around the corner this morning toward the street market looking for food.  The wet and drizzle from last night was still around.  We were quickly tempted by the cheap and tasty street offerings -- chicken satay, yellow watermelon, raisin bread and a cup of coffee for me. Even huddled under an awning, it was delicious.

The first task of the day was getting an Australia guidebook, which we’d failed to find in Cambodia. The nearby bookstore was closed, so we hopped into a tuk-tuk for the mall. On the way there, however, we let ourselves get sidetracked by the driver. When we said we were thinking about seeing the Grand Palace later in the day, he suggested seeing it first since it would close in the afternoon (while the bookstore would be open late into the evening.) Unbeknownst to the kids, the Grand Palace was the one bit of sightseeing Meg and I had talked about. Agreeing with the driver's recommendation, we changed plans and headed for the river and a boat ride to the Palace. The boat we were brought to, however, turned out to be a full $60 river tour instead of a simple transit boat. Much discussion then ensued with the driver regarding destinations and pricing with the end result being a short walk to a different dock for the standard passenger boat. It was totally packed, but it was great fun to watch the boat assistant jump on and off at each dock, throw the rope around a cement pylon, and blow a few sharp whistles to let the captain know what to -- forward, back, stop, go….

Street art

On the river boat

Though the skies were grey, we still enjoyed the over-the-top decorations of the Grand Palace and it's many temples -- gold leaf, mirrored tiles, bright colors, and mythical creatures. We met Lil and Ned from Santa Barbara (Boston originally) who gave us some oyster eating recommendation in Marshall, Oregon. The kids hung in there, and with the obligatory sightseeing over for the day, we could fill our bellies and finally find the bookstore we'd planned to visit earlier in the day.

The tastiest mini pineapples ever!

Ned and Lil from Santa Barbara

When we did get to the Siam Paragon Mall, we were quite impressed. Wow, if you wanted a high end retailer, this was the place. Fortunately, there was also an excellent English language bookstore and loads of places to eat. We found not only the guidebooks we were looking for; but also some extra school workbooks for the kids; and a cool, world-travel, coffee-table book that we could give to our hosts, the Hagin’s, at our stop tomorrow night in Bali.

One thing we were constantly coming across, were pictures of the King. It was only in October of last year that King Bhumibol Adulyadej had died at age 88. He was very well respected having occupied the throne for seventy years. Even now, there were pictures and memorials of the king everywhere in Thailand, but especially in Bangkok and always with accompanying black and white ribbons. The mourning period will last for a year with many citizens wearing only black during the entire period.

Despite the many items we've lost over the year, we have managed to hold on to the most important one -- our phones, credit cards, passports.... We did have a couple close calls, however, yesterday and today. First, I left my bank card in the ATM at the Thai border. Incredibly, five minutes later a man ran up to me as we were walking to the bus (I didn't even know I'd lost it!) Then, today, Meg inadvertently left her credit card at the bookstore. She fortunately realized it was missing later when buying a couple small gifts for the kids -- for Dex a small dog figurine with a little money he received for Christmas and for Kylie a new pair of earrings to replace ones that'd fallen out.

A dog figuring for Dex

At the souvenir shop

Mock San Francisco food truck

Mexican food at last!

Thus we took the third and forth Uber rides of the day, first back to the mall for the credit card, but also a welcomed stop at the Mexican food restaurant modeled after a San Francisco food truck. It's been a long time since we had burritos and quesadillas, mmm, mmm. Then, on to the airport hotel. With alarms set for 3AM, we happily hit the hay (three in the bed and Kylie on the floor) calling it an early night.