Home » Thailand » Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 3: From Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Highlights of the two last days in Bangkok were visits to the beautiful (but crowded) Grand Palace and to a snake farm where May Tina got to hold a python. Then we took the night train to Chiang Mai, which was slightly less hectic than Bangkok, although it still had lots of traffic by Norwegian standards. We spent one day walking around Chiang Mai and getting ready for some jungle trekking.

Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 3: From Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Jan Arild Teland
2006-05-08 18:22:33

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Day 6 - July 2

We got up at 0745 and had breakfast at the hotel. Today we were going to visit the Grand Palace, so we put on long pants and proper shoes before leaving. After having taken a bus down to the palace, we were surrounded by people who wanted to be our guide inside the palace. However, we decided to manage without a guide, so we paid the entrance fee of 200 Bath each and were let inside.

Today was the hottest day so far, so we wanted to buy some cold water before exploring the palace. For some reason, the woman in charge refused to sell us water bottles from the refrigerator. We have no idea why, but we were only allowed to buy water bottles that had been standing in the sun for a while, which was pretty annoying.

Anyway, it was easy to see that the palace was Bangkok's number one tourist attraction, as the number of tourists was really overwhelming. At the other small temples we had visited so far, we had usually been all alone, but here it was difficult to walk around without getting in the way of someone taking a photo. The palace was very beautiful, no doubt about that, but the enormous crowds really spoiled the experience somewhat.

As a consequence, we didn't spend that much time inside the palace and were outside again by 1030. We then took a taxi to Top Ten Collection for a "second fitting" of my suit. It was then our intention to return to the hotel, but we had to settle for Khao San since (as usual) the taxi driver had no idea where our street was located. On walking back towards the hotel we came across an Asian restaurant that looked pretty nice, so we decided to have lunch there. I had Macaroni once again!

Around 1240 we were back at our hotel, just as it was starting to rain quite violently. This was our first rainfall in Bangkok, which was quite surprising as we had expected it to rain almost every day! Maybe we had been lucky, or the wet season isn't ...