The Grand Palace

The day started off great.  After breakfast Kim tried to make a spa appoitment while I looked into our travel arrangments to the cruise port.  While we were planning for the trip we did not book a transfer from the hotel to the cruise port, figuring that we would be able to figure out something while we were here in town.  That wasn't going so well for us and we lucked out that our hotel was one of three or four hotels that Princess Cruises was using to house arriving guests.  They had a representative who was able to arrange transportation with the rest of the group.  It only costs $65US/pp which was good because they say the trip will take 2.5 hours and there are a lot of security restrictions.  I don't know how much of that is true but it's convienant.   I would recommend that others book this in advance with their travel agent if possible...it saves a lot of worrying. 

We finally made it to the Grand Palace today.  After being told twice that the place was closed we found the front door and made it in.  We read about this scam in the guidebooks but still fell for it.  Frequently people, even those who appear to be officials or representatives, will tell you that the site is closed in an effort to get you to go shopping instead of visiting the site.  Ignore them.  The site is open from 0830 to 1530 each day and the only entrance is on the north side.  Once in you can visit both the palace and the Wat (temple) which is located inside. 

In the Wat is the famed Jade buddah which is very neat to see.   One thing that I especially liked was the fact that in most of the wat's we visited there were people actually praying.  These locations, although overwhelmed with toursits, are actual religious sites and are used frequently by the Thai's. 

After visiting the Palace Kim and I went to meet her cousin Sara and her boyfriend Christian.  They are on a trip to visit a few places in the world before doing volunteer work in Africa.  Our hope was to meet them at their hostel right as they arrived and then take  Sara and Kim to have a Thai massage at the Oriental Hotel.  Unfortunatly Sara and Christian's travel from the airport took longer than expected and we weren't able to get her to the appointment.   Kim was able to make the 6pm appointment and it was incredible.

I did not get a massage, however I did go to the spa with Kim.  The Oriental Hotel is incredible, and I'm sure very expensive.  The people were nice and all spoke english.  She said that the massage was great.  The hotel was very nice and took us back to the SkyTrain with their water shuttle even though we wern't guests.

We had left a note for Sara and Christian to meet us at a landmark at 8pm.  It worked great and we all met right on schedule.  I spent the next three hours talking their ears off about what we had learned about Bangkok so they didn't make the same mistakes we did and were able to see more for less.  Sara and Christian have a week here and then they are going to sevearl other places before they end up in Africa for 9 months.  It was nice to meet them.  They are really interesting and I'm sure they'll make a big difference with the people they work with.