Thai Culture Shock! Day 2
After sleeping on what was possibly the hardest mattress I have ever felt, I wasn’t feeling that refreshed. Most of the people in my dorm were still asleep and those that weren’t had already left. I grabbed my things together and went to the bathroom for a shower.
There are two bathrooms on every floor in NapPark – one for the boys and one for the girls. Luckily for me the male bathroom was right outside my door. In the bathrooms there are only two showers that are behind some glass with frosting covering the vital areas. I’m not exactly a prudish person so didn’t mind but I’m not sure how the others felt about them. During my shower the glass had obviously become steamed up from the hot water but I heard the bathroom door open and could see the shadow of somebody walking in. I didn’t think anything of it until I could see somebody looking in at me in the shower through a gap in the glass next to the door. After yelling at whoever it was they ran out of the bathroom pretty fast. I didn’t manage to see who it was so couldn’t tell the staff, but I wasn’t best impressed!
After my perverted shower experience I had some breakfast (Muesli, banana and yoghurt with a cup of tea for 80 baht – bargain) with the people in my dorm and then donned some appropriate clothes to go to the temples in. In a lot of the temples and religious areas in Thailand I’ve been told you have to have your ankles and elbows covered by clothes in order to enter.
Appropriately dressed we made our way to the taxi boat a little north of Khao San Road. Instead of walking through the actual pier we walked around the back and over a small boardwalk. We didn’t do it intentionally, but by doing so we didn’t have to pay to get on board the boat!
When the boat arrived at the pier I asked the person I was with if they were joking when they said we were getting on it. People were literally crammed on to the boat with any rules of personal space being well and truly ignored. I know I sound like a snob, but I’ve never had to experience something like this before (and yes I’ve been on the tube in London!). The ride to where we were going didn’t take too long – 5 minutes at the most, but I’ve never been yelled at so much in such a short space of time. The people in charge of getting people on to the boat kept shouting for everybody to go further in to the boat but didn’t quite grasp the fact it was impossible to move, never mind get further in!
We jumped off at ‘The Chang Pier’ and made our way to the reclining Buddha. On the way to the Buddha we passed so many small market stalls with the most random objects for sale on them. Obviously with my current money situation I didn’t buy anything but there were some funky pieces of jewellery there.
Upon arrival to the reclining Buddha I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. Obviously I’d only been in Thailand for a few hours so hadn’t seen much of it yet, but I still couldn’t believe the complete contrast between the poor and rich there. Outside of the walls to the Buddha were people sleeping on the floor with a discarded bag wrapped around them for a blanket, but inside the walls were lavish golden objects dotted around the place, mosaics on the walls and other quite obviously expensive objects. I know I have no rights to judge another culture, but I still couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.
After getting over the initial shock, we took off our shoes and took a walk around the Buddha. I was immensely impressed with the sheer size of the thing. A lot of time and effort had gone in to making both the Buddha and the room that it was in. The walls, ceilings and even floors had been covered in intricate and colourful designs that must have taken forever to create. As we were walking around the Buddha the sun shone through one of the open windows hit the Buddha which reflected a golden light that lit up the room – it was truly spectacular! Standing there stunned looking at this goliath of a statue I didn’t notice my friends shouting me from the other side of the room. They already had their shoes back on and wanted to move to the next area.
The next stop on the list for today was ‘Wat Arun’ – a temple on the other side of the river. There’s a taxi boat very close to the reclining Buddha that takes you over the river for 3 Baht so we headed in that direction. The trip across the river is literally a few seconds long but it beats walking to the bridge in the Thai heat!
You’re able to climb to the top of Wat Arun but you have to buy a ticket if you want to go up. I can’t remember off the top of my head how much it was but it was around 150 Baht. We each bought a ticket but as we got closer I wished I hadn’t. It’s very deceiving how steep the building actually is. When we were standing at the bottom of the stairs I took one look up towards the top and I kid you not when I say they were almost vertical. There were small children running up and down them but here I was with beads of sweat running off my forehead just thinking about it. I got photos of the others walking up the stairs first and then plucked up the courage to face my fear of heights and walk up them myself.
I’m glad I did actually go up – the views from the top are pretty spectacular. The sun was still quite high in the sky when we were at the top but I’d like to climb it at night time or at sunset (if that’s possible) to see the surrounding areas lit up.
Getting down from the top of Wat Arun was just as much fun as getting to the top. Again there were small children running up and down the steps next to me as I was climbing down but they would occasionally bump in to me as they were passing. I swear I have never had violent thoughts towards minors before but if any of them bumped in to me one more time I was going to throw them off of the top. The children knew what they were doing to me as once I was at the bottom they were standing and laughing at me (and that’s the reason why I’ll never have kids. Children are evil).
Hungry from my adventure to the top of the world’s tallest building we stopped off at a street vendor close to the Chang Pier. We all ordered a plate of Pad Thai each and I have honestly never had such a tasty meal in my life. I’ve paid silly amounts of money for food in restaurants around the world but this 70p dish was phenomenal.
We spent a lot of time talking and exchanging stories but without realising it the sun had started to set. After noticing the time we jumped back on a taxi boat back up to Tha Prachan Nuea Pier which was close to our hostel. We relaxed in the common room for a while and got to know a few other travellers. I met an Italian girl who was travelling on her own so offered for her to come out to dinner with us later that night. We weren’t going to any place special – just a small restaurant that was up the road from the hostel but it was still nice. Again we all exchanged stories while having a few beers before going back to the hostel. Day two in Thailand was certainly looking better than day 1! No natural disasters, no con artists, no losing valuable luggage – my luck was finally starting to turn around!