Day 1 - Sights in Bangkok

Wat Arun

Today was the first full day of the holiday, we went to Wat Arun, and the Grand Palace. When we groggily awoke from lat night we quickly headed off to a massive breakfast. When at home people (our family at least) don't eat that much for breakfast, but on holiday there's hardly enough food to satisfy us. Going up repeatedly and filling our plates for what seems like an eternity.

Once breakfast was eventually over we headed to the hotel's dock and got the shuttle boat to the main public pier, where we got a ferry taxi to Wat Arun. Wat Arun is a large impressive temple built in 1726 similar to a pyramid in structure.
There isn't much to do or see there, despite how impressive it is,  other than looking at the monument itself or going into Buddhist prayer rooms where you can stare at monks. Although you have to take your shoes and hat off to go inside and see them, which becomes more of a pain each time you do it.

MONKS!

View from the boat.

Once we had left Wat Arun we went to the Grand Palace. There are lots of entrances to the Palace, however there is only one tourist entrance. As a result the other entrances are tourist traps where you are tricked by a man into thinking the Palace is closed for 'monks to pray'. We fell for it. Next thing we knew we are being put into a Tuk-Tuk (a motorised rickshaw basically) with orders to come back in 3 hours after being taken to see some sights in the area by our personal driver chosen by the man who was fooling us. After arriving at one of the sights where we looked around (the driver waited by the entrance) we had a quick peak into our travel book, 'ignore anyone around the Grand Palace who, telling you that it is closed for the day, offers what will turn out to be a shopping tour of the city.' We suddenly realised that we were being scammed, where we would eventually end up in some family shop where we would have to spend some money. So when we went back to our waiting driver we may of had a go at him and told him he's not getting paid unless we go to the Grand Palace now.

Your mum.

After all of that we were at the Grand Palace, I was given awful baggy Aladdin trousers to wear as I walked around as for some reason you can't wear shorts in the Palace. Despite the fact that you cant go in anywhere, and you mainly walk around it and go into little temple prayer rooms with monks. By this point the heat was literally unbearable, the humidity was awful as well. When I got back to the hotel I found that I was already quite tanned, but tanned in the shape of a t-shirt. I then went to the gym, had some dinner and then watched some films. It's been a good day of sightseeing, and a lot of walking. Tomorrow we visit the markets.

One of the temples at the Grand Palace.