Day 2 - Places Missed

The 7am morning call we set last night jarred us awake. Oh man, It's so comfy here. I can't be bothered to answer that phone.

The ringing stops and I warily crack open an eyelid and spy my sister arranged haphazardly on the bed beside. No luck there either. We've slept nearly 9 hours and we're still dog tired.

The phone rings again and I groan inwardly. Tian gets up and takes it off the hook. It's the start of a new day. I'm 21. Yeeha.

We're down at the breakfast table by 8. I heap poached eggs, bacon, ham and three different kinds of sausages on my plate and make an imaginary mountain. The sushi on offer tastes stale but who cares? The orange juice is freshly squeezed too, but Tian opts for pineapple juice. Yuck. We discuss the day ahead. She wants to go to Safari Park. I feel it's too far away.

We're met in the lobby by a male guide. Ban is his name, or at least that's how I think it's spelt. We're supposed to wait for another couple but after a few minutes, we're told that they've canceled. On to the minivan then for the half day city tour.

We're going to see two temples and a gem dealer. That's all they can cram in half a day. We reckon the last stop is commission for the guide. But first, Ban tells us we've to pick up some more tourists at another hotel.

The next hotel is smack in the middle of a couple of crowded alleyways where people are busy setting up stalls. Some kind of market, it sure looks busy.

The new additions file on to the bus, a frail old woman and her daughter from Manila and the latter's cousin, a retired schoolteacher from Hawaii. They flew in last night and they'll be gone by tomorrow. They're dismayed to find out how little ground they'll cover this morning. They offer us sweets and the old woman cackles as she tells us the other two have come to Thailand just to buy sweets.

"Last night, it was so late and yet they told me they were going down to 7 Eleven to buy candy!"

"It was only 8.30!" protests her daughter, "but of course she was already dressed and tucked up in bed."

We proceed to our first stop. The Marble Temple looks impressive. The gold tiles on the roof glint brightly in the morning sun while we enter through a front gate guarded by two dragon like creatures. They've been surrounded by barbed wired railings and extra wire is laid across their backs. I wonder if they're there to prevent people from stealing them but my sister comes up with a more likely explanation. "They don't want you climbing on them to take photographs."

We join a school group snapping pictures in the main sanctuary. They're all snapping away happily. My camera keeps telling me it's run out of batteries, then promptly changes it's mind. I snap off a few shots, the best of which depicts a stained glass above the window.

Ban stays outside the temple, a scene we're going to encounter at every stop. Tian thinks he's sick of all the places, but I still think it's strange behaviour. He's the guide, no?

We snap off a few more pictures in the temple grounds. Tian likes to be in her shots but I refuse to let her drag me into the frames. Some of them turn out pretty nice. The woman from Hawaii likes taking pictures of doors. She wants to make a photo collection of them. Weird.

The next stop is the Temple of the Standing Buddha. We enter pass the obligatory shrine and Tian points out urns embedded in the walls surrounding it. The Standing Buddha is indeed huge and towers above us but is remarkably unremarkable. Photo opportunities are scarce. We mosey around till it's time to go but not before we spot some Thais putting coins into like a hundred bowls placed in front of 8 idols on a table, one after another.

Ban explains that the 8 idols represent days of the week and the Thais start from the idol symbolising the day they were born. From right to left, the idols symbolise Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Day, Wednesday Night, Thursday, Friday and finally Saturday. He also tells us the place was built by King Rama V, who incidentally also built the Marble Temple and almost everything else he mentions. Swell fellow, this Rama V. Must have been some architect. There's also an entertaining tidbit about Thaksin. King Thaksin is apparently spelt the same as the billionaire former prime minister Thaksin. But the former is pronounced Thaaaksin while the latter Taksin. Okay, cool.

The gem trader is similarly boring, but we get a Thai silk purse set for Grandmother and flee. The complimentary van from the trader's gets us to Siam Paragon and we, following earlier directions from Ban, visit Central World Shopping Centre. It's huge too, and I find to my delight, an Arsenal Store. Heaven indeed.

Lunch at Paragon is at Sweet Delights. I order Chicken Cordon Bleu while Tian tries the Mexican Chicken. My portion tastes good, with cheese oozing out but my sister can't finish hers. We finish off with pretzels from Auntie Annies. Strange that we never tried them in Singapore even though there's supposedly a store at Ngee Ann City. We won't make that mistake again.