So, day 3 in Bangkok, and I decided to spend the day taking a hop-on-hop-off river boat along the Chao Phraya River that runs through Bangkok, and finishing the day off with a dinner cruise on that same river.
It was a long day. At one stop, I visited a flower market, and had lunch at a small place in an alley. I have realized that I had to learn the words for “no spicy, ” My Pet or Pet Nit Noy for little spice, so that I would be able to make sure that the food I ordered was not hot enough to make my eyes water and my nose run. The tissue on the table was not enough to clue me into the fact that I was going to be eating something that was just as hot going in as it was coming out!
Visited the amazing Wat Arun temple. You can take the stairs to the top to see a 360 degree view of Bangkok. I was looking forward to that. However, not only where the stairs steep, they were all about 14″ tall, and there were no handrails. I was bummed but decided to err on caution (Yeah, I know, not normally my style.) and come down after about 5 steps. Each step was so tall that it felt like I was doing squats to climb each one. Oh well.
I also visited ICONSIAM, the largest mall I’ve ever seen, 8 floors. It was overwhelming. That’s where I found out that you cannot order alcohol between 2-5pm. You cannot even buy it in the grocery store during that time. Turns out that the Thai government does not want children (read “high school students”) to be able to buy it, so the purchase of alcohol is banned between 2 and 5pm. The rationale for this is that 2pm is the earliest time the schools let out and, by 5pm, kids should be home with their parents. Who knew?
Finished the day off with a dinner cruise on the river that ended at 9:30pm. I decided that it would be prudent to order a car to take me home than navigate the transit system. All in all, an amazing day!
I can’t get over the colors on those temples! Just beautiful. And yeah, tall steps…no shame in declining. Ha!