The view inside the tuk tuk. They always drive at a high speed in narrow lanes. It's exciting and fun!

I didn't know it still exist! I don't know the right name for it.

We went for prayers at the Four-faced Buddha outside Platinum Mall.

Actually I don't know the right way to pray. But I heard that we need to go in clockwise direction but I went anti-clockwise.

Since it's still early, we decided to walk to Central World for prayers. There's two statues outside the mall. One is Elephant God and I am not very sure about the other one. This is Elephant God.

Elephant figurines at the steps.

Elephant God

The other statue

We are approached by a man in 50s with a husky voice whom claimed that he is a lawyer and first taught us how to pray to the Elephant God and the other statue.
Then he told us that he went to Singapore before and he has friends over there etc.
And he told us that there is a temple that opens once a month and today happens to be the day. He explained that it will cost THB 20 to bring us to this temple and Erwan Shrine.

So we were brought to this temple. There's this guy (probably one of the devotee) appeared and taught us how to pray to Lucky Buddha. I saw a few monks walking around and many stray dogs.

The guy in the photo that Jane is talking to you is the devotee that I am refering to.

After praying, we left the temple and the tuk-tuk driver waited for us. We left for Erwan Shrine.
During the journey, the tuk-tuk driver said that he need us to help him by visiting jewellery and tailor shops in order to earn stamps so that he can have free petrol.
So we went to those shops and ‘wayang’ around the shops.

Anyway, I didn’t think that it was a scam at that point of time as I wasn’t persuaded or forced to buy stuffs. We merely paid the tuk-tuk driver and left for prayers at Erwan Shrine.

And out of curiosity, I went to goggle about temples that open once a month in Thailand.
The search led me to some website and forums of people who were being conned to buy low grade gems at sky-high price. They are being approached the same way as us.
And the description of the man who approached them seems to fit the one we met. But the only difference was ‘conmens’ supposed to be waiting for preys at the temple supposed to pretend that they tell you that they managed to get some good deals at discount and lied to you that these are sold in Poh Heng, SK & TP at a much higher price. And they will bring you to the jewellery center.
The picture of jewellery center in those website seems to be very much alike to the one I visit.

Apparently, this has never happened to Jane and I. Thank god!
Nevertheless, just be more alert and careful when you are praying this area.
Simply goggle ‘gem scam in Bangkok’ and read more about it.

Erwan Shrine

Apparently, there's no free joss sticks. Have to buy from this counter.

Bought the joss-sticks and flowers for THB 20

Alternatively, you can pay the dancers to do the prayers. They will dance and sing while you knee down in front of them.

The band

Black Canyon Coffee, the Thailand Starbucks but the drinks are cheaper. About $2 - $3 each drink

Of cos the drinks isn't as nice as Starbucks. And we shopped at Platinum Mall the entire day.

We had our lunch at Platinum Mall, ate the same thing that we had on Day 1 for dinner. Haha! Oh and we bought this takopachi. 6 for $2, you can even mix the flavours. It's nice and most importantly - piping hot!

We stopped by at 5pm to grab a bite. Jane bought this super nice crispy crepe wrapped with pork floss and ham! Nice!

We went back to hotel to unload our heavy loots! We bought mangosteens on our way back. 2kg of mangosteens! Chill it in the fridge and have it after dinner. I love chilled mangosteens. We had 1 kg of it the day before and it's sweet!!

We rested our tired feet and was too lazy to walk out to the main street for dinner. So we settled for roadside foods.

Crispy fried chicken! It looks good right? It tastes great!

Huge BBQ prawns. 6 for 100 baht!

Satays...

As you can see, they are ultra friendly...

Our dinner! The food's tasty. We even went down again to buy some satays for the bellboy.

I awoke around 6:30am on the second day, having missed my opportunity to be humbled by the famous one night in Bangkok.  Eleven hours of jetlag-fueled sleep had saved me.  I sat at the porch, drinking coffee and mapping an itinerary for the day.

Many a site I would see on a self-made walking tour.  Off I went in search of my first destination: a walk through the Sanum Luang.  With a brain still addled from my long journey and excessive hibernation, I stroll through the streets.

Lucky Buddha? More like Sucky Buddha. Yeah, I said it.

Turning a corner, I’m hailed by a Thai gentleman asking what it is I’m looking for.  I tell him.  “No, this is not interesting,” he says and goes on to describe some other sites I may be interested in.  He speaks very good English and had mentioned some places I was planning to go to anyway.

As we’re talking, a tuk-tuk pulls up and the gentleman tells me I can take it for 10 baht due to special promotion: free petrol vouchers for the drivers.  I think to myself, “Why not?”  I’m curious about the tuk-tuks anyway.  So in I go, off to Lucky Buddha.

In this way, I experience the mild insanity of a tuk-tuk ride.  Weaving in and out of traffic at high speed, turning into oncoming traffic and being nearly clipped by motorcycles flying by, we make our way.

After the Lucky Buddha (nothing to see here, move along),  the driver must stop to TAT (Tourist Authority of Thailand) to get a voucher.  After which I request we head to Marble Temple.  “Oh no, closed today,” he says.

This fool was driving like a bat out of Hades.

Now, even with a brain functioning at around 50%, I realize this sounds familiar.  The driver must now go to another place to redeem the voucher.  This destination?  A fashion store.  Yes, familiar indeed.  I’ve unwittingly stumbled across the 10-baht tuk-tuk scam.  A harmless scam when it comes to money (10 baht is around 30 cents), but it cost me 2+ hours of my day and my itinerary.

So, humbled, I share this:  Lo!  Beware the 10-baht tuk-tuk, for therein lies the succubus of time.

Recent Reading

• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Phra Phong Suphan, Suphanburi

Phra Phong Suphan, Suphanburi

Phra Phong Suphan, old-aged features, Suphanburi. 素攀府， “拍逢素攀屏那家 “  (老年形)  佛像。

Buddha Sculpture, Wat Arun

The Wats (temples) in Thailand are stunning and plentiful. We saw many. All of which featured a sculpture of Buddha. We saw Standing Buddha, Lucky Buddha, Black Buddha, Happy Buddha (also known as Smiling Buddha) and many more.

Sculpture, Wat Arun

Some of them were especially exquisite. Here are a few of my favorite pics of various temples in Bangkok and some pictures from the ancient Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn) which was built when Thailand was still known as Siam.

Row of Buddhas, Wat Arun

Fence, Wat Arun

Happy Buddha (aka Smiling Buddha)

Buddha statue built by King Rama I in 1807 but the temple was not completed until the reign of King Rama III in 1847, Wat Suthat

Monks in a ferry on the Chao Phraya

According to staff at Highwater, Richmond restaurateur David Bess (of Lucky Buddha, Cha Cha’s, and most recently Verbena) will be taking a stake in the establishment and turning the restaurant into a gourmet burger joint.  Highwater,  located within Toad’s Place, currently offers southern influenced casual fare and a few offbeat bar food items like buffalo fries and Lima bean hummus.  Expect a completely new menu.

The restaurant will be closing within a couple weeks for the revamps to take place.  There will be a new name for the project as well, tbd.

Since we had seen little of Bangkok we set off straightaway that afternoon to do some sightseeing, first to the incredibly crowded temple across the street from Khaosan and then beyond.

The temple by Khaosan Road.

Our next goal was to head to the conveniently situated only a few blocks away main sights of the Grand Palace and temple of Wat Pho.

We were stopped along the way there whilst looking at our map and were approached by an articulately English speaking Thai person who gave off an innocent, helpful vibe.  He suggested we take a tuc-tuc ride only on the yellow license plated ones, which apparently for the day had petrol subsidised by the government as many people around the city would go to visit shrines for the New Year.  He circled some locations on our map and said they would take us to see the sights, including a few temples, and a large “silk market” where the driver could redeem for the petrol.  Unsurprisingly, just around the curve one was waiting for us, at which point began my feeling of unease and assumption that this was clearly a scam.

The driver offered us a ride for 30 baht total, a bit less than USD$1, and with insistence from my companions we were off.  He took us first to see a real temple, the massively tall standing Buddha one, next to which we first saw a gold- and jewel-adorned temple building of some kind that itself was probably more stunning.

View from the back of a tuc-tuc.

Next to the towering standing Buddha.

Closer view of the front.

The standing Buddha, from the side.

Dried jellyfish and more.

Coin dropping ritual.

Kitty.

In the grounds, we saw people in the midst of prayer rituals, lighting incense and kneeling in front of smaller shrines or the towering Buddha itself.  Near that was a line of bowls where one pays to do a ritual of taking special coins and dropping them in a line of identical bronze bowls.

Some market booths were set up between and around the structures, one selling dried jellyfish and other things.  On our way out we saw a couple kittens playing around, but I scared them away while catching a shot of one.

Next, the tuc-tuc driver took us to the “Lucky Buddha” which began our tour of the scam.  At this temple, from the exterior looking normal except for the cars parked feet from the entrance, there was no one else to be found.  On the inside we found a large statue of a laying Buddha, which we would later find to be a mini-sized replica of the massive one at Wat Pho, behind which I found brooms and cleaning supplies.  The place did look mostly like a normal shrine, adorned with some plastic but perhaps some real flowers, the architecture glimmering with the gold and jewels as one sees at other temples.

The fake Lucky Buddha temple.

Outside, we “ran into” a Thai gentlemen with a confident command of English, acting surprised to see us and telling us we were lucky to know about this temple open only to the public one or two days of the year.  Somehow he segued over to the topic of the special silk market insisting that we would get exclusive discounts for the day.

Feeling a bit angry on the way out that I had let myself get into this situation, it was not surprising when our next two stops required us to browse through increasingly shady silk stores offering ready-to-wear goods and custom tailoring, not at all reminiscent of a market.  The second one seemed to have a hundred employees, most of them not Thai, adding to my unease about the nature of their business.  I wondered about the likelihood that these businesses may be connected to exploitation, unfair wages, and at worst funding international conflicts, though perhaps this is all too dramatic.  At least the salespeople weren’t rude or particularly pressing.

At least after these two stops, he took us once again to a “real” destination, a large temple complex we would likely not have otherwise seen during our trip.  It was near when the place should have closed, but we had enough chance to walk through the grounds casually and witness monks in orange robes both chanting and later on their way home through the grounds, over the little bridges across the area’s canal.  On our way out, though, we discovered that our driver left… Lucky for us before we had paid him.

Joe on a canal bridge in front of a temple.

Temple interior, monks having a service.

Temple complex's canal.

Drums and bells at a side building.

Statue in the inner plaza of the main temple building.

We had a nice walk back to the Khaosan area, past some very official buildings with armed military guards and farther still past the Democracy Monument.

Democracy Monument at night.

That Saturday night, all three of us this time suited up and got pretty to go clubbing out in the “rainbow village.”  After taxing there we walked far enough, actually just a block or two past where G.O.D. was located, to find Silom Soi 2 and DJ Station, which did indeed have the metal detector security spot as shown on its web site.  We were early for the evening’s drag show, so we paid cover, got our stamps, and walked back down Silom Road to look around the street shops and kill time, avoiding numerous offers for ping-pong shows, and then back.

DJ Station, or possibly better titled Silom Soi 2 (Silom Road Alley 2, I guess), was a multi-building complex but not actually very large in actual interior size.  It had three floors and thus two balconies looking down at the stage, where the show was to commence.  By the time we arrive back the place was buzzing but far from as full as we would see later, but fifteen or so minutes to kill we explored the upstairs floor and checked out the black-and-white club photographs on the third floor.  The show itself was almost as impressive as the one over at Club 9, and in any case very entertaining.  An obese drag queen dressed something like a belly dancer, nonetheless, invited a white guy on stage to take part in her intentionally humourous performance.  Otherwise, like Club 9, it was an impressive set of mostly English, a couple Thai language songs.

Not full of the well-choreographed routines for the night, we rushed over to Silom Soi 4, the main rainbow street, and said hello to James at Balcony on our way to see the midnight-thirty show at Club 9.  The crowd that night was considerably larger than the previous Tuesday night show Courtney and I saw, but still there was quite a bit of room in the place.  In any case, the show had no repeat performances from earlier that week; it was entirely new but just as good.

Afterward, we enjoyed drinks at Balcony and went to G.O.D. for dancing fun, where James later met up with us.  I met a guy from Dubai who seemed nice and interesting but later proved otherwise, but there’s no particular drama to report there.  Though I could have stayed there all night, finally I think it was around 4 AM that we left and crashed for the evening.

Update: I totally and completely lied, but not intentionally.  Actually, we didn’t go to DJ Station on Saturday night because two of us were wearing sandals and they aren’t permitted in Silom Soi 2.  So, it was actually the next night that we went to DJ Station and then Club 9, but not G.O.D.