Good thing I have my guide books because you see, I had to change my plans... So i have not yet, when i write this, actually seen the palace. First of all, it turned out that it was a Buddhist holiday, which kind of explains the huge piles of yellow flowers at the flower market the day before. The holiday meant that the palace and especially the temple was being scrubbed. That in itself not a reason for me not to go but they were preparing a ceremony too, the president was going to arrive in the afternoon, and because of that the temple grounds were closed - and the palace I couldn't get into - you see, I had missed the fact that no shorts or sandals would be allowed, or at least no naked feet. I didn't have shorts but they were not long trousers, they reached only over the knee. And yes, that was too short. I had brought a scarf to cover arms etc, I normally do anyhow, as you never know where the air con is going to be on full blast, but it turns out that since I didn't go sleeveless that wouldn't have been a problem, but lower legs and feet was. So no Grand Palace for me - that day. Instead I started to walk around a bit just north of the palace and found a memorial hall that I went into, to have a look. Well, to be completely honest I was hoping they'd have a bathroom but they didn't. It was anyhow quite interesting, as I got to read a bit about Thailand history - but the interesting part came later - I went into another Buddhist temple.
Buddhist temples, by the way; now I have seen them in plenty of countries and I must say that it's fascinating to see how they vary in style depending on country - a Chinese Buddhist temple, at least where I have been in China, is much more focusing on the round Buddha with a smiling, what the Chinese often call "The happy Buddha". To be completely honest though that Buddha looks more like I imagine he did before he reached the elevated stage, and found the way, so to speak, Buddha, or Siddhartha as his name was, went through different phases to try and find the way, and one of the ways included over eating...Anyhow, the Thai Buddhist temples I have been to so far have all had Buddha after he reached elevation, where he is not too thick, not too thin, and so forth, but just in between. A pretty handsome guy actually, if it wasn't for all the symbols that shows it's after elevation; The long ears (he is a good listener), all the fingers are the same lenght, all the toes are the same length, and so forth...
At the temple I looked around a bit, saw monks hoovering - yes, as in cleaning, using the hoover/vacuum cleaner, not as in floating around - and decided not to go inside but to just peak though the door and then walk around on the yard. And I did. But just when I had decided to check my map To decide what to do next a woman approached me and told me that I could go inside, and which building was the main temple. She pointed first and then came with me and showed. I joined her. After all I was curious and I wanted to see the place, I just didn't want to disturb. She showed me the temple and then we sat down and chatted for a bit. Warning bells could have rung, as it happens that tourists get tricked into buying things they don't want this way but I have pretty good trust in myself and believe you have to trust other people - as long as you are at the same time careful. If I just sit there as a suspicious westerner I will miss so many interesting meetings - and that goes for travelling in the western world too. I'd rather get conned once and have had all these other great meetings than never be at risk but then never experience anything.
Anyhow, this woman was very nice, explained about the Buddhist holiday that was coming up (two days later) and about the presidential visit. Or prime minister as I guess he is, after all Thailand is a monarchy. She was from Chiang Mai up north, and was herself in Bangkok for holiday - the third time she was here. She asked me about my holiday, where I was going next and so forth. And yes, she did tell me about places worth seeing, among them one temple that is normally only open to Thais, except on this special holiday. Sounded too good to be a coincident but it was later confirmed by others. Because yes, I did let her write down a list of places to go and I did allow her to come with me to negotiate with the tuk tuk driver (small covered moped engine driven thing with space for two passengers and the driver - even more if you squeeze and don't have long western legs). She had already written down in Thai as well as English where I should go and what it should cost as well as how much I should pay, but I guess that when I looked indecisive she decided to come with me. Anyhow the price was very good so even if it would have been a con try I figured it would be worth it. And yes, the tuk tuk driver did what they often do, he took me to a place which wasn't on her list, a place where he would have gotten commission but I spent very little time in there as I didn't want to buy and I know they always overcharge you at these places - and besides I was already staying at Silom road where I can walk into a shop and buy what I need. But the driver only tried one shop and after that we stuck to the original schedule - and it was very interesting! And I also stopped at the TAT, to get some advice for my continued travel. This is the state controlled Tourism Authority of Thailand that is recommend also in my guide books and look at that, now I have the tickets for my trip up north, somewhere to stay when I arrive with the night train, and a one day trekking tour in a national park booked, as well as a day trip towards the border of Laos. All in line with what I had planned anyhow, just that I didn't have any details. Very good! (I hope, we'll see if the train ticket is valid and if I am picked up as I should, but it seems to be OK all of it - and if it would be fraud they sure went through a lot of work for it - and there were plenty of other people there too, and everything corresponded with what I had read about it. The only thing to look out for is how much they charged my credit card... But at least I am not using a card anymore where they automatically pull the whole sum from my bank account after one month, the new card I have a chance to check and stop before charge is done in case there is an incorrect one.
Anyhow, there were several interesting stops on the way, including a temple with a huge standing Buddha - the same place where I didn't see a step and fell towards the little cupboards containing urns with ashes from the dead. Luckily I managed to break the fall before crashing into it. Can you imagine how embarrassing that would have been otherwise? Me, broken glass - as the doors were all made of glass - broken urns, blood (as i would have cut myself for sure) and ashes, all the relatives would have been mixed up...
The urns that I almost dived into, there is like a ditch which you can see as a dark grey border closer to the back of the room. See it?
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