Today we are exploring Bangkok to see some of the old Temples, the Grand Palace, and Chinatown. We decided we should try to take public transportation today to get the full experience. But first, a Bolt car to drive us 15 minutes to the Sathorn (or Sathon- they spell it both ways) pier (the closest train would have cost us more and taken double the time as the Bolt).
There are tons of people standing around what looks like the dock for the public water taxis. They will try to sell you long-tail boat tours, city tours, hop-on-hop-off tours… You get the idea. Unless that’s what you want to do, leave that dock, cross a little bridge, and find the real water taxi pier.
Tickets on the Blue Flag water taxi are only $30 baht per person (cash only) to travel from here to Wat Arun, and the boats come every 10 minutes or so. We found ourselves seats up on the top deck so we could enjoy the views.
The river is a busy waterway – tons of water taxis, long-tail boats, barges, etc. going every direction all over the place with buildings on both sides. This part of the river does not go through any huge skyscrapers, but still interesting to see the city from the river.
We got off at Wat Arun Ratchawararam, (the Blue Flag taxi announces stops in Thai & English), and immediately were in line to purchase tickets to go into the temple, also known as The Temple of Dawn. Tickets are $200 baht per person and come with a bottle of water & a hand stamp. You know you’ve been in Thailand for awhile when $200 baht starts sounding like a lot — we had to remind ourselves that it’s less than $6 per person.
Wat Arun was founded before 1656 and has undergone tons of building and renovation since then. The biggest tower was completed in the 1850s. This one was fun because they allow you to go up the steps and walk around the zigzag wall that surrounds the Chedi. It was also fun because there are hundreds of Thai people dressed in fancy traditional clothes taking pictures. Littlest girl really loved seeing all of the sparkly dresses and would love a pink one for herself!
This Temple block is all concrete and there is little shade so it got very hot! No wonder they hand out water when you buy tickets! An umbrella would be a great idea. Overall we didn’t spend a lot of time here- the temple decor is interesting, but the people watching was the best part.
There aren’t a lot of food options here, but we found enough for lunch and ate in the shade. We think that Thai people think that all Americans eat is chicken nuggets and french fries (they call it “Western Food”). At Wat Arun this was the only place to eat, not even Pad Thai.
We bought water taxi tickets to cross the river to the Grand Palace (Orange flag taxi cost about $10 baht each… The lady only handed us 5 tickets and we had to tell the ticket guy on the boat several times that we had paid for 6… Luckily he let it fly.)
The Grand Palace is a 10 minute walk from the pier. The whole way, vendors kept approaching me saying “Long pants, long pants.” We were wearing shorts– it’s required for women at least to wear long pants to go inside the palace walls. We had already decided to just look at it from the outside because it was $500 baht per person and pictures online looked similar to other buildings we’ve seen so we didn’t figure we needed to pay. It was interesting to see the royal guards outside the wall, and we saw a changing of the guards through a gate.
In one of the shops across the street Littlest girl got her wish– a sparkly pink Thai dress in her size! The shopkeeper was so excited to have a little blonde girl all dressed up. She gave us the silver belt for free and absolutely made Littlest’s day!
It was a hot day (about 90 degrees F) with the sun reflecting off the white wall, so we quickly headed to another water taxi pier. We bought tickets for the Yellow Flag taxi ($21 baht each) and had to wait about 40 minutes. At least we could sit down and were in the shade. A whole group of young monks came and sat by us. We also saw an older woman slip on the dock and fall on some stairs. She cut her head and was pretty shaken up, but at least she didn’t fall in the water (she was very close!).
Finally our boat arrived and we learned very quickly that we should have paid more to ride the Blue Flag taxi again. We were squished on the Yellow Flag boat like sardines with standing room only. There were only Thai announcements and none of the workers on the boat spoke English. It was hard to figure out when we were supposed to get off to go to Chinatown (Ratchawong Pier). When we saw the sign on the pier we literally had to push our way through the crowds to make it to the back of the boat so we could get off. Learn from our mistake– use the Blue Flag/Chao Phraya River Express Boat instead.
Chinatown Bangkok is supposedly the biggest Chinatown in the world. It was crazy to walk down tiny alleys lined with shops — whole alleys dedicated to shoes (most of the shops sell wholesale only), or bags, or hats, or spices. And even though the alleys were narrow, like 2 or 3 people standing side by side, they were open for traffic. Tons of motorcycles and a few cars squeezed through. The slightly wider alleys had big trucks squeezing through the crowds. Just nuts!
We made it through a labyrinth of alleys to the main street with iconic chinese signs advertizing everything, street vendors, tables and chairs set up on the street (which was open for traffic), and paper lanterns strung across.
Most of the restaurants and street vendors that we passed in Chinatown looked sketchy… A little too filthy and a little too authentic Chinese Dim Sum for our American taste buds (the last time we tried Dim Sum was in San Francisco’s Chinatown and we have vivid memories of not loving it. Haha.) We found a street fair and got fried rice & fruit smoothies, and later some ice cream in a waffle just for fun.
We were ready to head back to our hotel but also wanted to see Chinatown lit up in the dark… So we went on a quest to find a pharmacy to replenish our bug spray.
Everyone says online that sunscreen is hard to find and expensive, but bug spray is easy and cheap in Thailand. I’d like to know where they are finding it!! So far we’ve found 2 kinds- one is 12% deet and is about $100 baht for a 3 oz bottle. The other is 30% deet and is $250 baht for a 5 oz bottle. Considering we’re heading into an area with malaria-bearing mosquitoes, I would have loved to bring a bottle of OFF Deep Woods 98% Deet spray with us. I just don’t think the fruity citronella based ones are going to cut it…
We decided to walk out of the busiest part of Chinatown in order to get a Bolt car back to our hotel (we checked the trains but were 25 minutes walking away from the one we needed and it would cost the same for the 6 of us). On the way down a side street the craziest thing happened!! We were walking past a couple, I was looking at phone navigation, when I heard “What in the world are you doing here?” and looked up to see some friends of ours from Utah!
The chances of us crossing paths on a random street in Chinatown in Bangkok, a city of over 10 million people, are so infinitely impossible!! We were all speechless!! Neither of us knew the other would be in Thailand. They arrived in Bangkok today, we leave tomorrow. She said she saw Superman and her brain was registering who it was since it’s so out of context, then she saw 4 kids in a row, then finally saw me and it clicked. If we had even been across the street from each other we never would have seen them! Wild!
We ended the night talking to our Argentina missionary. We always love spending time with him and it was nice to be back at the hotel without distractions.
Here he is wishing Spud a Happy Birthday! ❤️
