Day 35 - Grand Palace, Giant Reclining Buddha, Quest to find the Muai Thai Boxing Arena and Cabbages and Condoms

First thing this morning I went with some girls from the hostel to book a ticket to Chiang Mai at the Hua Lamphong Train station. A second class sleeper with airconditioning and a bed cost 791B (under$30). It cost nothing to travel here. It kinda nuts. The train is supposed to take 12 hours and will leave on Friday at 6pm.

From here I took the #53 bus to the grand palace. This bus basically does a loop around the touristy area of Banglumphu to the grand palace and through Chinatown. This bus was supposed to be around 10B, but no one came around to collect any money. We ended up getting off at what we thought was the grand palace but turned out to be the flower market. Vendors were stringing together flowers for ceremonies. It smelt amazing here. Flowers and food vendors as far as the eye can see. We ended up walking to a nearby temple and taking some photos and headed back to catch the #53 to the grand palace.

This bus had no bus stop so we basically stood on the side of the road where the bus dropped us off and we waved it down. It took another 20 min to get to the grand palace.

The Grand Palace is absolutely enormous and the structures are just amazing. On the grounds we saw the Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the emerald buddha). The buddha is actually made of jasper from Northern Thailand where it was once encased in stucco.
Words cannot describe this place. You need to go and experience it for yourself.

For lunch we stopped off on Th Maharat and ate as it torrentially rained outside. I had fish stomach soup and some pancake like spring rolls that were covered in a sweet brown sauce and fresh crab. All for 50B.

Wat Pho was the next order of business. It's the site of the infamous giant reclining buddha. It was 50B to get in and the buddha is absolutely huge. It's 46m long and 15m high in the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok. This place is amazing. Its insane how large this buddha is.

Muai Thai boxing seemed like a good idea for tonight. We were trying to figure out how to get to the arena and asked people. One guy was really friendly and said that he was a school teacher and told us how to get there. He said that he could get us a tuk-tuk and help us get to where we were going and how the tuk-tuk was only about 10B we would just have to go to a retail store first. This was sketchy. He was trying to con us into getting into a tuk-tuk and driving around to buy stuff. I said thank you but no. He told me I was stupid not to. I just nodded and asked a monk where the arena was. I've realized you can trust a monk and a really well dressed lady here. That's about it.

The stadium ended up being closed but there was a fight on tomorrow for 1000B at 6:30 pm.

Had dinner at a place called Cabbages and Condoms. It helps to educate the population about safe sex. This entire place is decorated with condoms. There were maniquins everywhere dressed up in clothes made completely of condoms and contraceptive pill packets. It was hilarious! They even had a santa made completely out of condoms. This place served very good Thai food but did not give out dinner mints at the end. They gave out condoms instead.