It’s hard to believe that I have never been to the Royal Palace considering all the time I’ve spent in Thailand, at least until today. It kinda felt like commuting to work since getting there involved battling the masses during rushhour on the BTS skytrain, and me with a tripod, ugh. It also required a 20 minute boatride down the river and a few block walk past apparently helpful locals who attempt to convince you that the Royal Palace is closed and will not open until 3. In fact, it closes at 3. I can’t really figure out what’s in it for them and why everyone has chosen the same line.

The Royal Palace is a glut of tourists but it adjoins a nice monestary. The grounds of Wat Phra Kaew are beautiful and it’s not hard to imagine that if you took away all the tourists it might actually feel sacred. I did my thing with the camera and then bolted straight for Wat Pho but not before encountering another round of “Wat Pho is closed” lines. I’m embarrassed to say I did not take a single pic as all I could think about was getting a thai massage. So nice. An hour thai costs a whopping $7.50 and comes with tea.

My commute home to the lovely and peaceful Suk11 Guesthouse took about an hour reversing riverboat and skytrain. I was totally sucked in by an iced latte on the train platform before I remembered that ice in developing nations is a no-no. If I don’t post tomorrow you’ll know why.

I can take only one commute a day so i’ll probably spend the rest of today chillin at Suk11, reading a bootleg paperback of Harry Potter (apparently copied from a copy of a copy..) I swapped out for Tipping Point, which, by the way, didn’t even last me from Chicago to Tokyo.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 at 1:20 am and is filed under travelog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.