Bangkok was a whirlwind. We landed at 11am after 30+ hours of straight travel. Luckily we both were able to sleep quite a bit on the planes so we felt rested and ready to see some sights. After finding our way through customs we picked up a Sim card and headed towards the ARL train.
The train was our first attempt at public transportation turned out to be super easy. Google is a life saver here and told us what train to take and what stop to get of. After that is was a short walk through a sunny warm rain shower to our hotel. For the first nights we used a few of our hotel rewards to stay at the Park Plaza Sukhumvit. We figured a few days rest in a 4 star hotel would be a nice jumping off point for our trip.
We had originally planned on spending the day at the weekend market but because we landed on Dec. 4th. (the kings birthday/Father's day in Thiland) we decided to take part in the celebrations and headed for the Grand Palace.
After a quick shower we headed off towards the BTS Skytrain and towards the river. From the Skytrain we jumped (literally jumped) on the Chao Phraya Express Boat going north.
Express boat filled with people wearing yellow "Bike for dad" shirts
We have adapted a new philosophy in regards to where we should be, when to cross roads, and public transportation. FOLLOW THE HERD. It's simple and got of through most of Bangkok. The royal color is yellow and for the Kings birthday/ Father's day the majority of the people were wearing yellow. 90% of these have a yellow "Bike for Dad" tee shirt on. This made it quite easy to follow the heard towards the celebration.
Waiting with everyone outside of the Royal Palace for a glimpse of the King's car
We arrived outside of the Grand Palace and stood in a strange but peaceful silence that was occasionally broken by a random loud European traveler. Here we watched multiple mini motorcades transfer Thailand officals towards the Sanam Luang park. We attempted to get as close as we could to the stage but could only get glimpses of the officials on the monitors around the stages.
View of the stage with all the officals
The coolest part of the night began when everyone light yellow candles and began singing. This was followed by fireworks and random celebrations all around.
Everyone singing with their candles lit
Impressive fireworkshow
At about 8:30 the exhaustion finally caught up with us and we tried to find our way back to the hotel. We quickly realized how hard this was going to be with the celebrations going on all around us.
We began our trip home waiting for and hour for a bus that never showed up. Winging it and getting on a different bus that then crawled through the traffic and celebrations for over an hour. It would have been much faster to walk and at one point a dad got of the bus only to reappear 3 minutes later with water.
There we found our selves on an old bus stuck in traffic both occasionally nodding of from exhaustion. After about and hour and a half we finally broke through the crowds and began speeding towards our hotel.
A quick jump off and a quick Tram ride and we hoped on to a nearby Indian restaurant at 1 am. After some delicious food and a bloody nose we finally made it back to our hotel around 2:30. (6 hours after leaving the Grand Palace)
Our first day was exhausting but exhilarating. After so much planning its great finally being here and we can't wait for what's next.
