You haven't experienced Bangkok until you've been scammed.
It's not upsetting though as everything is pretty cheap and there are relative bargains to be had. Aviva bought me a diver's watch for about 4 quid and I picked up a pair of trousers for a tenner if a little oversized. As a tourist though you are marked as we found visiting the main temples in Bangkok.
The tuk-tuk ride is the perfect preparation as the bangkok roads are quite a contrast and having seen your life flash before your eyes you are just about ready for a religious experience. The temples are incredible, but the tour was rushed as we arrived rather late. The statues in the inner courtyard are all gold plated and in the process of restoration (at the cost of about a million dollars) as are the plinths and the four towers to the kings. The king in the "The King and I" gets a blue tower and his was the last. The decoration on everything was incredible and some of the plinths are being restored by families who get their name on them (up to about 40000 dollars US). It has become a temple for the rich and the monks. There are three gold buddahs. At the standing buddah (1 million dollars restoration cost) we had our marriage blessed by a monk. The monks cannot touch women, so the tour guide had to tie her piece of orange string to her wrist and hang the small pendant over her neck while the monk did the same for me. Naturally a donation was suggested and luckily they accepted dollars. Twenty dollars lighter (I must remember to carry only small denominations) and our marriage will forever be guarded by the Buddha, a piece of string and a small plastic pendant.
The reclining buddah is big. Very big. Forty five meters long, all gold and all intensly decorated. It will cost about one and a half million dollars to restore (plus another million for the halls aparently) and that includes the feet which have 108 pictures of marble and pearls. The outside has marble pictures which are copied onto rice paper. It is at the sitting buddah where the monks pray. They become monks for their families who often pay the costs. This is so that the monk can pray for them also and raise all of their Karma. The guide forgot to tell us how much the restoration would be as we were in a hurry by now. Luckily the man who takes the copies of the marble pictures was outside and was a friend of the guide. He showed us some cloth pictures and explained that all costs would help go to the restoration and we could get a special deal if we bought two.
It seemed a little mean to argue with the tak-tak driver over the 50p fair whilst clutching a couple of cloth pictures, but by this time it was war. You get lots of offers to show you around the city. I decided to lead him on figuring that at least we had stopped arguing about the fair. He was a liverpool fan and we were stuck in traffic. The traffic in Bangkok is faster than London, but they make up for it with twelve lane roads through the city. The police wear facemasks and I can see why. Aviva had developed a cough. This was going to be a battle of attrition. He would wait for us after we had dropped him off - no. He would wait for us tomorrow - no thanks. He could drop us off at some shops for ten minutes on the way... Luckily he stalled and I could change the subject back to football. Everybody is a Liverpool fan here. At least it wasn't Man U. When he heard this he became a Manchester supporter. It started to rain and we said we were in a hurry.
Khau San road is markets and neon and lot's of stalls. When it rains here it really rains and as it was dark (I cannot tell you the exact time as my diver's watch had clouded up at the first sign of water) it was a scene from Bladerunner. Water can end up hip deep here and this was just a shower. I welcomed it. It was still hot and we had taken a couple of days to aclimatise. Now we felt we had arrived for real and we were not buying anymore stuff from traders. We were now veterans. Besides, my hands are kept busy holding my trousers up. Aviva thinks I should buy a belt and she has seen some really nice ones...
yours, Marcus and Aviva.