I Have Friends!!

I took it easy this morning going down for breakfast at about 9.15 to have eggs on toast, fruit and some pancakes with honey. After I had set myself up for the day I went for a shower and watched TV until 11.45 as I had to check out by 12. The reason I hung around was I had to check back in at 12 to my new room that is arranged with Intrepid (the company who organise the tour I am going on).

This room was a grade down from the one I was in, but the only differences were no hair dryer and no safety box as far as I could see. I dropped off my bag and then headed out to the standing Buddha (Intharawithan), which was a short walk from my hotel. Adding to my expanding collection I took a few more photos of this enormous Buddha.

While having a look around I met a Canadian girl called Kat who invited me to join her as she had a tuk tuk waiting and it was taking her to the Marble Temple (Wat Benchamabopnit) next, which is where I was heading. As soon as I got in the tuk tuk I knew this guy was taking us on a wild goose case as he wanted to take us to the 'Lucky Buddha', which I knew from previous experience was the place they tell you how good the Thai factory is and you can get cheap suit in the sale etc etc. I told the driver I had already been and wanted to go the the Marble temple as I knew he wasn't going in the right direction but he still took us to this Buddha anyway. We both sat in the tuk tuk and said we did not want to go here as I had already seen it and to take us to the Marble Temple, which is when on cue he started to say he would take us to the 'Thai Factory' first and then to the Marble Temple - we just refused and as before the tuk tuk driver just walked off.

It was another free ride anyway but we were a bit out of the way from where we wanted to go so we decided to walk there though we did start walking in the wrong direction to start with and ended up at a market which was quite funny. There was one stall where i swear the guy must have been a TV control thief as his stall was just TV remote controls, all random and for different makes and models.

Once we got back on track it started to pour down, I was well prepared though and whipped out my umbrella, which kept me dry until I could dive under some cover. It didn't rain for long and we were just across the road from the Marble Temple anyway so went to check it out. It was still a bit wet, but the grounds that it was set in were really nice to walk around and I got a photo of me standing at the doorway to the Temple, which had to be done.

We decided to take another route back but it turned out to be pretty un-scenic so we waved down a tuk tuk driver and bargained a price for him to take us back to Kao San road, which was a good call as I was starting to feel the miles of walking I had done in my legs.

I met up with my fellow travelers on my trip at 6pm for a meeting and to ask any questions about the trip. We then all went out for dinner, but I only had a salad as I had scoffed a banana pancake at about 5. Most people went back to the hotel but a group of us decided to go for a drink before going back.

We stopped off in a bar on the Kao San road and ordered a 4 litre tower of Sangha (Thai Beer) for the four of us to share, which was kool. We watched 6the penalty shoot out for the Man U / Chelsea match then called it a night and headed back to the Hotel.

We leave in the morning at 10am for 2 hour bus trip for our first point of call.