I'm wide awake and strongly suspect it may be the middle of the night.
I grope blindly for my phone until my fingers finally make contact: 5:45 a.m.
Not ideal, but better than expected.
Desperately, I try for another hour of shuteye, but quickly give up and start absentmindedly scrolling through my phone.
"Hey girl," says a tiny voice beside me. At least we're on this strange sleep cycle together.
Arielle rolls out of bed and makes us coffee. As she reads, I journal and think: it's actually nice to have this quiet morning time. I can't remember any time in my life that I was up this early.
Today is temple day and once we reach a reasonable hour, we sort through our clothing in search of something appropriate to wear to the Grand Palace.
The T-shirt I select is a little short, but if I wrap my sarong up higher it looks modest enough.
Arielle has a maxi dress, but it's thinned strapped, so she covers it with a sheer kimono.
I'm excited to try Grab, the Asian Uber-equivalent. I order the car to our location and we wait for the described vehicle. And wait. And wait. I message the driver through the app to tell him I'm here. He says he is too. He asks what street and I send him the actual address of the hotel. He tells me the address is different than the GPS location. Oops. Typical dumb foreigner.
Finally, he locates us and we scamper in apologetically. I'm pretty sure he hates us.
By the end of the ride he's smiling and laughing, especially when I misunderstand a situation and nearly dive out of the car head first into oncoming traffic. Guess my clumsy awkwardness transcends language barriers.
We look around a bit then start to make our way to the Grand Palace. We stop to admire another huge monument to the new king.
A man stops and gestures towards it, "The new king," he tells us and then launches into a conversation.
He asks if we're going to the palace and when we confirm, he quickly tells us it's closed all day for a Buddhist ceremony.
I can clearly see hundreds of tourists walking to the palace entrance and none are returning with disappointed faces.
He starts telling us about a boat tour we can do instead, he even grabs our map and draws out the tour route, all under the guide of being helpful. The price is insanely expensive.
We've both seen the old: where-you-want-to-go-is-closed-but-go-here-instead enough times. We nod politely and try to separate.
"Here, come with me," he insists. "I'll get you a good price for a tuk-tuk."
We politely thank him for his time and tell him we'll consider it later. Typical Canadians: Can't even be rude to someone scamming them.
As suspected, the palace is not closed. In fact, it's absolutely swarming with people.
We try to slip onto the grounds with the other tourists, but security grabs Arielle. Apparently her cover up is too see-through and her shoulders are too visible.
Not wanting to pay for gross rental clothes, Arielle resigns to wearing the raincoat I brought. It's not breathable and she's sweltering, but luckily we have no plans to actually tour the interior. It's overpriced and overcrowded.
We do a quick lap of the grounds, snap some photos and try to dodge the Asian tourists with no sense of personal boundaries.
We stroll to Wat Pho to see about this Reclining Buddha. Entry is more reasonably priced, so we opt to go in.
The grounds are stunning, we take it all in before entering the building that houses the Buddha.
It's phenomenal, everything is so lavish and ornate. The Buddha himself is colossal! I'm in absolute awe.
There is little time to enjoy it since navigating through the hordes of people takes all my focus.
Arielle and I ask a lady to take our photo and the moment I hand her my camera, she looks perplexed. Her expression screams: But this isn't a phone?!
She can't figure out to look through the viewfinder. She doesn't hold the shutter down long enough for it to focus. I call out directions to her, while the queue for this particular photo spot is growing and starting to resemble a mob. Stress-sweat pours down my face. She manages to get a couple that abruptly ends our photo-taking.
We wander around Wat Pho a little longer then head out for another amazing lunch: tom yum and papaya salad.
Re-energized from lunch we journey across the river in the little passenger ferry to check out the Temple of Dawn.
On the way there, the lady across from me gestures for me to take a photo with her daughter seated beside me. Experiencing a strange mix of flattery and embarrassment, I awkwardly perch next to the little girl while her mom snaps away. She shows me the picture after.
I like to imagine a random Chinese family showing their friends a slide show of their vacation: "Oh and here's a photo of a blindingly white woman, look at her translucent skin!"
The Temple of Dawn is incredible, but a bit much for my socially-anxious-self to handle. In every direction there are people taking selfies or lining up shots of their friends or asking you to take their photo. It's near impossible to take a step in any direction without an accidental photo bomb. I'm sliding toward an anxiety attack so we call it a day.
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| Perfect example of struggling with the zoom |
We hail a cab and tell him we're going to Hotel Icon. Arielle tries to give him the address, but he insists he knows where it is. I haggle him down significantly and feel very proud of how far my skills have come in such a short time.
He drives and Arielle and I chat absentmindedly in the back, relishing the air con.
"Here we are," his voice shakes us from our revelry. "Siam Icon."
This is definitely not our hotel. And it's way too nice.
"No, no," we tell him. "Different Hotel Icon, this one." We show him the address.
"Oh no! Too far, too far!"
He decides he'll drop us at the sky train, for a slightly diminished rate, and we can go from there.
It's not up for debate, he's telling us this is what is happening.
We cram into the overcrowded train and make the journey. To add insult to injury, unbeknown to us he's taken us in the opposite direction so we have to backtrack significantly.
Our first order of business when we arrive back is taking a dip in the rooftop pool.
We head up the elevator in our bikinis while clutching a big bottle of Chang.
The housekeeper giggles uncomfortably in our direction. Faux-pas perhaps?
We ask the guy at the pool bar if it's cool for us to bring our own beer. He couldn't care less and goes back to watching a movie on his iPhone.
The water is lukewarm, but significantly cooler than the humid air; we sip beer and float.
The pool is on the edge of the building, surrounded by glass barricades, you know, so you can stay safe while enjoying the view of the city. A huge pigeon startles us, swooping low over our heads.
"Fuck off!" Arielle warns him. He swoops even lower and slams right into the glass window with a loud THUD. Arielle and I both scream at the top of our lungs. In that split-second, I have a vision of the flailing pigeon in the water and me having to save his drowning ass.
But he manages to recover and retreats to a frangipani tree; he's visibly shaken.
In all the screaming and chaos, the bartender doesn't even look up from his phone.
We're both famished and consider checking out some more food stalls, when Arielle discovers there's a Michelin Star-rated restaurant just down the street.
"Do we do it?" she asks, "Splurge for our last day in Bangkok?"
I'll never say no to good food.
It takes us a little time to locate Thai Nai Yim as it doesn't show up on Maps.me and it's tucked away in the alley of high-end mall.
When we arrive, they're completely full except for two outdoor bar seat which face a window onlooking the kitchen. It's like watching a performance: eight men in action, crammed into a tiny hallways of a kitchen while they crush spices and sautée vegetables. We order two of their signature dishes: coconut-infused chicken fried rice and spicy prawn and beans. It's all delicious and still under $12 each for a meal and a beer.
We walk back and try really, really hard to stay up until 10, but give up by 9.
