Exploring Bangkok

Started the day off with breakfast at the hostel and had to wait out a rain shower before heading out for the day.

Wat Intharawihan (Standing Buddha) was a fifteen minute walk from where we were staying I’m sure we looked like confused tourists so of course we were approached by a man asking where we were trying to go. He told us of a few other places we could visit and general directions but we started walking away before we got roped into paying for something.

There isn’t a big entrance to the temple grounds-but we were stopped by men in a ‘visitors information’ stand who told us there was a 40baht entrance fee. I’m pretty sure that this could’ve been avoided and that they knew we were tourists and felt like we had to pay. 40baht is less than two dollars so it wasn’t a major issue. The temple grounds are beautiful. There are different areas around the Standing Buddha with donation boxes that you could donate any amount to get incense and candles to light as offerings.

To go into the temple you have to have your shoulders covered and be covered to your knees-for men and women. I wore a maxi skirt and brought a light scarf with me. You have to take your shoes off to go into the temples or in front of the Buddha statues. The main temple is small but has big, gold Buddha statues on the altar is covered in flowers that aren’t left as offerings. There’s a red rug that everyone kneels/sits on in front of the altar. There were people praying and chanting when we went in and it was very peaceful experience.

After the temple we found a small covered market which felt more like a swap meet than a market. Our first Tuk Tuk trip was leaving the market and heading back to khoasan Road. Driving through busy streets in a small, open sided vehicle is a crazy experience all in itself.

As soon as we got out of the Tuk Tuk it started to DOWNPOUR. That kind of rain that you can’t see anything in and more or less what you would expect when you hear that you’re going to be in Thailand for rainy season. But the rain gave us a pretty good excuse to go and get a Thai massage and for $5 for half an hour massage it was definitely worth it.

The rain stopped by the time we were done with the massages so it was back to the pool. The hostel’s lunch special was chicken fried rice and a beer for 99baht ($3.22)

Plan for the night: Nana Plaza-aka the world’s largest adult playgrounds. We used Grab (basically uber) to get a car there. There was security standing outside of the plaza and I was asked my age but didn’t need to show proof.

We sat in the beer garden in the middle of th plaza and more or less people watched and tried to come up with an idea of where to go and what we wanted (or were willing) to see. There’s three floors of bars/clubs and the girls are standing outside of the clubs trying to get you to come in. We did a quick loop of the three floors all of us feeling a lil uncomfortable. Decided that we reallllly couldn’t leaves bangkok without going into a ladyboy bar.

Rushed into what we thought was the ladyboy bar but ended up being the ‘grand opening’ of the Mandarin Bar. It’s a super small room and there’s four tables with three poles on them and girls in bikinis dancing. Every few songs the girls switched tables. We had one drink and decided to go to where we had planned on. We were the only group in the Mercury Ladyboy bar which meant all eyes were on us in a slightly uncomfortable way. One of the performer sat with us chatting-and while they were all friendly there was definitely pressure to buy the girls drinks-160baht to buy an employee a drink. There was a cabaret show that was entertaining and we all tipped them when they came around and then decided that we were ready to leave. We left Nana Plaza around 10 which means we probably missed the raunchier side of the area but I’m okay with missing out on that.

Back to khoasan Road for spring rolls from a street vendor-3 spring rolls for 25baht ($.81) and they were delicious. Khoasan is pretty overwhelmingly with food vendors and bar promoters all lining the streets yelling offers at you.