Location: Bangkok, Thailand

We knew today was going to be a big one since our to-see list has grown exponentially just in the one day that we’ve been here. At least one temple a day is on the docket so we decided to start out with Wat Pho in the heart of the old town. Wat Pho is the oldest and largest in Bangkok and has over 1000 statues of Buddha around the grounds which is wild and also the most of any temple in Thailand. The buildings were white and covered with glittering tiny cut pieces of glass mosaics in red, green and blue against a backdrop of gold paint. All around the grounds sat bell shaped pointed burial mounds faced with stone and painted ceramic sculptures, called stupas or chedis. We beelined through the first few sections since we knew the compound housed the headquarters for the teaching and preservation of Thai medicine, which includes Thai massage. Yay! There’s a massage school that has two pavilions and offers legit massages to the public. What a way to start the day!

Massages here are cheap. Like $7 CAD for an hour kind of cheap. I can’t even get lunch for that at home! I knew the real thing would be more expensive but it took all my effort to keep my mouth closed when it was still less than $20 for a full hour. TAKE MY MONEY. We both happily paid and promptly started being tortured.

Real Thai massages hurt! I was gritting my teeth through over half of it, and trying to relax the other half. I knew it was going to be worth it in the end, and it was! Was it? Yes. But was it really? Yes. But during?? So much pain. At one point they even brought out a stick so they could get more leverage and press harder on more specific pressure points than just using their thumbs would allow. Okay, alright maybe I’m more of a light massage kind of lady.

Feeling physically better but also like kind of tired from all the teeth-gritting, we made our way over to the reclining Buddha. I heard this was a thing we should check out but I wasn’t really sure why… until we climbed into the pavilion housing it. Inside, laying on his side with his head propped up against some pillows was a genuinely, impressively large gold plated Buddha. He was something like 150 feet long and 50 feet high. He was so big and in such a tight space there was literally no possible way to get a photo of the whole thing, let alone one that did it justice! Just look at this thing!!!

After gawking at the giant Buddha for awhile and giggling about his mother of pearl inlaid toe-prints (like fingerprints but… toes), we stopped into a restaurant nearby called The Sixth. We ordered traditional tom yum, which is a hot and sour red Thai soup, and pad see ew, a soy sauce rice noodle dish. I feel like every time we sit down to order food I have a mini crisis trying to decide between all the amazing looking things!

I was happy we loaded up on food seeing as our next stop was the Grand Palace, which I anticipated would take us awhile. We started to go in when one of the guards stopped Garrett and herded him towards a shop saying ‘No. No. No short-pants. No short-pants.’ Turns out that his knee length shorts were still too short! He came out of the shop sporting a very lovely pair of thick, baggy, army green pants with elastics at the ankles. I was quite pleased I wore a long dress with little sleeves today because I could have fit my whole body in one leg of those pants!

We explored the palace grounds, stumbling across the Emerald Buddha which is a small Buddha figure made of jade, meditating against a backdrop of just so much gold. Picture Scrooge McDuck levels of gold. I know a lot of it is likely gold-leaf or gold plating but if even a quarter of it was real solid gold it would still be just an insane amount of gold. Unfortunately no photos were allowed in here! We also learned that no royal has actually lived in the palace for like 100 years or something which makes all the gold feel even crazier to me. You’re telling me no royal is coming down here to revel in this at 2:30 AM with a midnight snack? Ugh. (If you need a new tenant I am tidy and have good references!)

Garrett has been talking non-stop about riding in a tuk-tuk and the moment was finally upon us. The sun came out for the first time this whole trip and we were caught out sunscreenless, so a covered little ride seemed like a great idea. He grinned ear to ear the entire way as the wind cooled us off and the little engine tuk-tuked away. We had plans to try and catch a long tail boat down by a pier next to the Oriental Hotel, the first hotel ever built in Thailand.

WELL I didn’t know the name of the pier so I gave the tuk-tuk driver the name of the hotel and he dropped us off there… which the valet mistakenly assumed meant we were staying there. It’s supposed to be a gorgeous hotel maybe we can look at it from the outside? Okay so we walk up the drive… which turns into the doorman ushering us inside and immediately we’re both like oh god we shouldn’t be here. But we’re trying to find the pier! So we walk forward and end up so far into the hotel grounds we’re at the swimming pool at the back muttering to each other to just play it cool it’s fine nobody is going to escort us out if we just turn around and walk out. I’m sure my eyes were as round as dinner plates the whole way through and every single person we passed looked rich and famous and I was wearing Nikes and Garrett had those green pants on!!! Get me out of here before we get arrested for breathing the wrong air or something!

The hotel was opulent and clearly expensive from the teeny tiny bit I was able to see through my mild panic and when we finally made it to the road I let out a huge breath, and Garrett laughed, ever the cool cucumber and just said ‘man those people know what it’s all about!’ Turns out it’s $800 CAD per night for the smallest room in the place.

We stopped for some food at Baan, another Michelin star pad Thai place that, while delicious, didn’t quite stack up to Thipsamai in my completely unprofessional opinion. I was all turned around and it was getting a bit late for the original long-tail boat plan, so we decided instead to purchase tickets to our first ever Muay-Thai fight!

We bartered and caught another tuk-tuk to Rajadamnern Stadium, the first ever Muay-Thai stadium in Thailand and affectionately known as Raja. Neither of us has had ever watched this kind of fighting live, and I have to say my stomach was in absolute knots. People are going to be beating the fluff out of each other! Yep, Savanna that’s what this is. You knew that when you bought tickets.

Seats surrounded a square arena as music pumped over loud speakers and huge screens flashed ‘Rajadamnern KNOCKOUT! 80% knockouts!’ The intense music transitioned to traditional Thai ‘countdown-esque’ music and the flashing lights centred in for the bouts to begin.

We watched seven matches of fighters from all over the world punch, kick, knee, elbow and dodge their way around the ring for 3 rounds each – except for two of the fights which ended in TKO’s which are not full ‘lights out’ knock out’s but enough that the guys go down pretty hard. One guy got elbowed in the head so hard that when he stood up to try and continue, his entire body wiggled like jello and and he fell back down. I can’t believe people do this for sport! That’s your brain!!!

Despite my incredulity at the whole thing and Garrett’s grimacing at the sounds, we both cheered the whole time and enjoyed every minute. I’m not a huge sports nerd but as soon as it’s live I can watch almost anything and enjoy it. This was no exception and given the change I would happily come back again.

Sav