A Nice Afternoon in Bangkok

Following Church in the morning and taking a break until after 2pm we ventured back out into Bangkok. We took the Skytrain to the waterfront on the south edge of the historic district and then caught a ferry heading north to our destination, the Wat Arun temple. We missed the exit as they gave you about 5 seconds to jump on/off the boat and we didn't know what was going on. Lets just say the guidebook didn't mention important little details like that. The temple was a big stone structure with lots of spires and cool colored figures/statues. Just as we got off the boat to visit it, the heavens let loose with our first downpoar since Singapore, and all we had for cover was a small pavilion at the local tourist booth. This temple was a small preview of Angkor Wat, the famous massive ancient stone temple in Cambodia we will be visiting in two weeks.

After waiting out the storm and visiting the temple we hopped on another ferry to the north end of the historic district and got off at a stop near an old fort and searched for an Indian restaurant (today was river crusing day). The place was called Roti Motaba (sounds like a scary virus out of Africa or something), but the food was delicious. I had the chicken curry with rice and some roti, or nan-like bread with butter and sugar on it. It was probably the best authentic meal we have had of the trip in my opinion. Mackenzie's travel book recommended it and we loved the food and relaxed atmosphere where you would just call out to the waitress your food additions and new items you wanted. And the bill came up to about $3US a person. Can't beat that!

We came home after that to get Fernando packed up for his departure tomorrow and for my fellow travellers to go to bed early. For some reason I have been doing great on the trip with less sleep than everyone else. It makes for a lot of alone time in the hotel lobbies to blog, read news, or generally waste time. The one downside is getting locked-out like in Kuala Lampur when Fernando slept through my 5 minutes of pounding on the door. Luckily, he woke up on my 3rd attempt with breaks in between.

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention about the movie. So in the middle of the previews we are sitting there (I'm watching Office and Fernando and Mackenzie are suffering through some horrible previews in Thai) and then all of a sudden the whole audience gets up like the prophet walked in the room and stands at attention silently. We jumped up like everyone else and looked up to see a minute-plus infomertial about their King and all the good he does. It was bizarre, but entertaining in a way. The King has been monarch for 60+ years and is widely respected. He doesn't have much direct political power, but he is looked upon as a wise, guardian of the people with a lot of influence on the country.

So here are picks from our Indian restaurant and McDonalds. Today we didn't have a full meal at McDonalds, but I got a McFlurry, Fernando two hamburgers, and Mackenzie a chocoalte sunday. The others are pictures of me on the river across from the temple we visited and a nice rainbow that greeted us around sunset after we got done eating.