You see, when I was planning the trip for us, I did read about the Thai Gem Scam. I was very careful about many things. Meters on taxis, a rough idea of the distance of all the places we were going to, rates of basic stuff like food, drinks, clubbing expenses, massage prices, etc. However, I still didn’t recognize the scam the instance it happened. One of us had to pay a hefty price to learn the lesson and I’m so sorry man. I could have prevented it and you would’ve joined us for the next trip if not for the fucking sapphire ring you bought. So sorry man.
08.00 am – Woke up for breakfast. All 6 of us. It was our last day of fun and we wanted to take everything in. In the morning, we gave up sleep time for some Thai food. Daniel and I woke up easier as we went home earlier the previous night. Andy too, woke up with no problem thanks to Anthony’s Symphony Orchestra.
Too bad I didn’t take pictures of Saturday’s breakfast. It was much better as they had milk, cereals and bacon.
09.30 am – We crawled back to bed.
11.00 am – Woke up. Was the first in my room to take a shower.
11.11 am – Dropped by Andy’s room while Anthony was in the shower. We chatted for awhile before..
11.14 am – ..I left for Daryl’s room. Shawn was showering when I entered. hung around there for a few more minutes before heading back to my room.
11.40 am – Left for the hotel and tried out the Klong Saen Saep boat service, which runs along the inner city’s big ass drain. Lucky for us, Pratunam pier was located 1 minute away from our hotel. Do note that this is the 2nd busiest mass transport boat service in Bangkok with around 90, 000 people a day using it. Boat frequency is every 3 minutes and starts from 5.30am to 8.30pm.
Hopped into one of these. The helmet wearing guys were in charge of collecting fares and keeping us from the longkang water.
How a pair of 12 baht Klong Saen Saep boat tickets look like.
It moved pretty fast. End to end takes only about 30 minutes and it is the cheapest + fastest way of traveling in inner city Bangkok.
We were so afraid that the smelly ass drainage water would hit us.
It’s so poisonous that if you fell you in, you have only 3 seconds to get your ass back up, or you’ll end up like this fish.
12.10 pm – The moment I stepped out from the pier, I saw a few of us talking to a stranger. He was explaining about how today was a special Buddha day and that the Grand Palace, where we were going to head to after the Bangkok National Museum, was closed for cleaning until 3pm. And that because today was a special Buddha day, all tuk tuks cost only THB 20. We were all kinda upbeat about it as it was so cheap. Unanimously, we decided to take a tuk tuk to our lunch destination, which we never manage to go.
We were so happy before we found out.
Bangkok’s Democracy Monument, commissioned in 1939 to commemorate the 1932 Siamese coup d’état which led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in what was then the Kingdom of Siam.
The road that the restaurant was supposed to be on was Tanao road but it was long. The tuk tuk fella only took us to one half of the road, not the other. So obviously, we didn’t find it. At first, I wanted to take a walk along Tanao road to look for the restaurant but decided not to. What a mistake I made. I could’ve insisted on searching for it on foot and save our asses from the getting cheated at the same time.
*sigh*
12.32 pm – And so we ended up in the restaurant of the tuk tuk driver’s choice. Crown Kitchen. Although the tuk tuk earned commission bringing us here, we enjoyed the food.
01.22 – We were on our way again.
Firstly, we stopped at the ‘Smiling Buddha Temple’ which was opened only once a year. The tuk tuk driver who took this photo for us cleverly miss the sign at the top of the entrance. I saw the missed sign in the camera preview but it didn’t hit me.
How ignorant I was.
In there a fella was already in place, waiting for us. We were told that the monks were praying and that we couldn’t enter the temple till they finished. We went to a designated resting area and we talked to a man sitting there. 40 year old-ish, long hair, thug looking, he spoke to us politely. He told us about the story on how he profited off selling gems in other countries. He said that gems in Thailand were cheap and that we could make at least a 50% profit by selling it when we returned to Malaysia. His story was so interesting that we believed him.
I wanted to take a picture of us with him but he smartly prevented me by saying that a ghost from the ‘Smiling Buddha Temple’ will follow us home if we did.
..|.. nah
02.00 pm – We left as the ‘monks’ were still praying and may take hours before they finish. We couldn’t wait any longer as there were so many other places that we had to go to. The tuk tuks then took us to a gem shop lot somewhere in town where the said discounts were taking place. I was inside but left after finding out that the price of jewelry in there ranged from THB 15,000 to THB 100,000. I was outside with Geoffrey while the rest was still inside. As you know, I always take pictures everywhere I go but the tuk tuk driver prevented me.
Sadly, this was where one of us bought a THB 20,000 ring. I’m so sorry man.
02.36 pm – Again, the drivers took us to another jewelry outlet called Chin Jewelry. This time, it was a factory. It still hadn’t hit me yet. And so, we all happily took a tour of the factory.
I took a single picture of this gem as the bastard back at the ‘Smiling Buddha Temple’ told us that this was the most valued jewelry in Thailand.
03.00 pm – We left there and the tuk tuks took us to a James Tailor. There I was pushed to make 2 shirts, 1 blue and 1 red for the price of THB 1800. Anthony and Shawn each made 3 tailored shirts for THB 2500.
After we went out, I decided and told the tuk tuk drivers to instead go straight to Grand Palace and skip the other suggested temples as there was not enough time to cover all.
Guess what? This was the point where ALL of us felt like cock slapping the tuk tuk drivers.
After telling one of the drivers that we wanted to skip the rest, he said, ‘You take taxi’.
In two seconds, 7 things crossed my mind.
- Chris, take off your sandals and flatten his face.
- Chris, burn his tuk tuk.
- So all that happened since we stepped out of the klong boat were lies.
- Now I understood why he didn’t take the picture of the sign at the entrance of the ‘Smiling Buddha Temple’
- Now I understood why he didn’t allow me to take pictures of the first jewelry place we went to.
- I’m with a group of my friends. Most important thing is we are all safe.
- It’s already 3pm and temples close at 6pm. Let’s salvage the rest of the day and carry on.
03.30 pm – We reached the Grand Palace. I was about to walk in to the ticket booth to ask for the price when the guard stopped me and say, ‘Sorry brother, it’s closed’.
FUCK!
Who the hell comes to Thailand and doesn’t go to the Grand Palace?
Chris Chee =.=”
It was opened since 8.30am in the morning and closed right at the moment when we arrived at 3.30pm.
*sigh*
So what did we do?
We took pictures
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
from the outside.
As we had no tour guide with us, we took turns taking photos for each other. Shawn the gay ass has this weird habit of taking pictures of his body parts.
Here’s his crotch.
After satisfying his needs, he took this for us.
I took over and wanted to take a picture of the guys with the flying pigeons. From behind, I saw this lady walking towards them holding packets of seeds. She almost conned Daniel by letting him hold a packet and running away when he wanted to return them to her.
hahahaha… Imagine that. Give you a packet of seeds and run away. hahahaha….
04.07 pm – After that, we proceeded towards Wat Pho.
Along the way, we saw many street vendors selling all sorts of funny stuff like radios, alarm clocks, books, cloths, etc. This was when Daniel saw something that caught his eye and he asked Andy a bonus question.
‘Eh Andy, do you think I can bring this sword back to Malaysia?’
=.=”
04.30 pm – Arrived at Wat Pho. The firs thing we did was take a picture with the largest golden reclining Buddha statue in Thailand.
Behind the statue was an array of 100 odd alms bowls where you drop satangs (100 satang = 1 baht) into it, one by one. I suppose it’s for good luck.
04.43 pm – Had so much fun taking pictures of Wat Pho’s surrounding architecture.
Wat Pho’s Chedi Rais.
Wat Pho’s Chedi Rai taken from the bottom. (© Shawn Photography)
He just couldn’t resist taking his ass.
Eee…. Anthony looks so cute~
We sat in one of the prayer halls for about 5 minutes, taking in the overwhelming sensation of the monks’ chant and the grandness of the interior.
Actually, getting an hour’s massage was part of the plan for Wat Pho, as it runs the oldest traditional massage school in Thailand. Too bad time wasn’t on our side.
05.13 pm – We headed towards Wat Arun’s pier in the river ferry.
It was so tiring and we rested as much as we can in the ferry.
06.22 pm – Arrived at the entrance of Wat Arun.
There he goes again, shooting his penjana gelombang.
06.26 pm – Wat Arun’s Prang.
Satellite Prangs.
We climbed up 2 levels of the central prang.
An boy did we have fun coming down the steep staircase.
It might not look steep in the pictures, but it was so steep in real life that Anthony was shaking in the balls. Only God knows how flat Daryl would be if Anthony tripped.
Even Daniel’s were slightly shaking. (holding the railing tightly)
05.35 pm – After going down to Level 1.
05.38 pm – Between Level 1 and ground level.
Hanging around Wat Arun’s pier, waiting for our boat to arrive.
These 4 fellas were having a blast watching
catfish swimming around.
05.54 – Left Wat Arun’s pier back to Wat Pho.
Shawn’s funky new hairstyle.
06.12 – Arrived at Thip Samai, where the best Pad Thai in Bangkok is found.
We ordered ALL 7 Pad Thai variations in the menu.
A raw set of side dishes that came together.
I noticed that the tip of the coke bottle was very dirty.
08.00 pm – Reached Bangkok City Inn. Each of us went back to our room and started preparing for the night out.
Took some photos of the stuff that I bought during this trip.
Sandals as souvenirs for the family.
09.00 pm – Some of us wanted to party while some of us wanted to sit down to relax and talk. So we came to a conclusion that satisfied everyone.
We split into groups of 2.
Group A to clubs, Group B to bars. Group A which consisted of the three of us followed Eka back to Route 66 to club while the rest went with Ko for some light beer drinking and chit chat in a bar. Hence there are only pictures of Route 66 as the cameraman was in Group A.
09.56 pm – I loved Route 66′s toilet.
10.03 pm – We ordered beer at the beginning so that we could leave if the crowd size wasn’t up to expectations.
10.17 pm – In Route 66, songs are played along with their respective music videos. I think other clubs like Flix and Slim adopt a similar concept.
Oh, and everyone here drinks Red Label.
Mixers that don’t come for free, unlike clubs in Malaysia.
12.01 am – As people in Bangkok were naturally friendly, we made a few new friends.
Seo Yeon and Ji Hee from Korea who were in Bangkok for their friends’ birthday party.
The sisters, Macky and Nong.
02.00 am – Closing time. I was kinda ‘kan cheong’ when I noticed that it was 1am. Seriously. I was like ‘Damn!’. The night’s ending soon.
Oh well, there will always be next time.
02.52 am – Took a taxi and arrive at the white chopped chicken rice shop near our hotel.
And boy did Geoffrey and
I
enjoy the delicious chicken smothered in thick gravy.
03.30 am – zzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz
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