Grand Palace

I meet Kerrie in the hotel reception and we head down to the boat terminal (Oriental, No. 9) to get the Express Boat up into the Grand Palace area. It’s great to see her and I am sure we are going to have a great day. The boat takes forever to come, so we decide to get one of the private Mandarin Oriental boats that seem to be going our way from the hotel’s private jetty, and make our way back to the hotel to investigate… but

a)    I don’t think the hotel thought we were guests by the way they looked us up and down and said they were for hotel guests only

b)    It cost 800 Baht per hour to hire, and you had to hire them for the duration.

c)    There was a dress code for the boats, and I didn’t meet it.

So we head back to the Oriental Jetty to wait for our less private Express Boat, which actually arrived pretty soon. The boat trip was such a good idea as apparently the traffic is completely gridlocked all the time (according to guidebook, though I didn’t notice it particularly busy when I went out for my walk this morning) – It also has a great view of the river and we pass Wat Arun, probably one of the most instantly recognisable Temples in Thailand. We get off at Tha Chang, the nearest jetty to the Palace, and walk through a bustling marketplace to get to the Grand Palace. I had been warned by Charles, and the concierge, and by the guidebook that everyone will lie to me here and tell me that the Palace is closed, before telling me that instead I ought to go with them instead, inevitably ending up in a family run business buying all sorts of shit.

This didn’t happen at all – and I was a bit disappointed, as I wanted to go along with the con and go “REALLY??? The Grand Palace, over there, with swarms of people going in and out the main entrance is closed. REALLY???” In fact, the only things that various people commented on was my lack of long trousers, and that I’d need to buy some from them to get into the Palace. Luckily for me, but not for them, I had packed my jeans to change into in the event that I needed to cover up my lovely legs.

The Grand Palace is exactly as described: absolutely amazing and it’s shimmering gold, emerald, glass, silver etc blew me away. I got a bit of a neck ache as I wander about the grounds, looking upwards most of the time, at the sheer size and intricate nature of the buildings.