Day 2 - Bang Pa-In Summer Palace

Bangkok time is on GMT+0700. So when I woke up at the ungodly-hour of 6.15am, as per my handphone still on M'sian time, it was actually 5.15am. And we had to be out of the hotel at 6am (Bangkok time now), in order to catch the skytrain to Novotel Century Lotus, the hotel where the tour company say they'd pick us up from. I guess that's the inconvenience you have to put up with if you're staying in a budget hotel.

But, miraculously, Bangkok at 6am looks like KL at 7am. (Urm, well, it is la, actually). What I mean is, the sun is already up and peeking rather brightly through the clouds already. And, if we didn't wake up this early, we wouldn't have had to skip our hotel breakfast and walk into the 7-11 on the way to the skytrain station, where I wouldn't have found out a few things i.e.:
a) Thai 7-11 has rather yummy hotdogs;
b) Some of the expiry dates on the products are not normal, meaning that the dates read something like 16.12.83. Like, huh? Early in the morning, too. JC explained that they follow some royal date or something like that (I must remember to check that out);
c) That I forgot how nice it was to walk so early in the morning (I think the last time I did this was probably when I was schooling and had to walk to school). Clear sky, that morning smell, everything starting out fresh.

Anyway, we arrived at Novotel Lotus slightly before 6.30am. Where we were in time to watch one of the hotel staff re-decorating the hotel's indoor lotus pond. She deftly picked up all the lotuses from the previous day, threw big huge lotus leaves (the ones that frogs usually sit on in illustrated storybooks) around, meticulously unpeeled all the lotus buds to reveal ravishingly beautiful white blooming lotuses, and then stuck them thru the middle of the lotus leaves. Beautiful :)

So, yes. To proceed on with this utterly long-winded story (I'm sorry I just need to remember everything), the tour guy finally came to pick us up in a small van, picked a few others along the way and sent us to this other hotel where everyone from a few small vans (including us) were shepherded into a big tour bus, from where we finally started our day-trip to Ayutthaya.

Detail : Cost us THB1500 per person, inclusive of entrance fees, lunch cruise on Chao Phraya with the River Sun Cruise, an English-speaking tour guide, basically everything. I think usually it costs THB1600. You can only get this rate with A and F Tours. Best thing is, this trip doesn't bring you anywhere near those gem factories or silk stores where they entice you to buy stuff you don't need (apparently quite a popular detour on most tourists tours).

Our English-speaking guide is this rather old man (definitely more than 50 years old), who speaks English-which-takes-some-getting-used-to. After a while, you realise that he probably memorized everything he said, which really rather amazes me that someone is passionate enough about his job to memorize an entire day's worth of speeches! Or maybe it's just that he's spoken the words too many times that it runs on auto now.

First stop was Bang Pa-In Summer Palace, about 60km north of Bangkok. Note for girls, can't wear shorts or revealing tops (i.e. spaghetti straps) or you'll have to loan a Thai skirt from them. I think if guys wore rather short shorts too they'd have to loan that skirt. When we first stepped into the grounds of this summer palace (which we'd have to do after going thru the gift shop), we were following the group along with our guide. After 3 minutes, we realised that following the group would take too long, so KF, JC, ML and I headed off on our own, with a very handy map provided when our tour guide bought our entrance tickets.

The picture up above shows KF taking a picture of Bang Pa-In's "signature piece" - an elegant Thai pavilion floating in the middle of a pond, of which stands a statue of King Chulalongkorn, as this piece of architecture was built by him.

Along the way, we saw this building which was thoroughly European in style and design. It quite looked like we were touring the grounds of a London or French castle! We didn't get to go into that building because, apparently, it's still occasionally used by the royal family.

There was also a lot of beautiful landscape, particularly bushes trimmed to resemble a family of elephants and a family of rabbits. With all these greenery and a lake around the grounds, it really felt quite tranquil. I thought "I could live like this"! Haha :P

Finally, we arrived at the only building within Bang Pa-In that we were allowed to enter - the Chinese throne hall. It was built in 1889 by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and presented as a gift to King Chulalongkorn. We had to remove our shoes to enter this building. And, gee, were we awed. Everything from the ornate ceilings to the hand-painted lacquer floor tiles were exquisitely put into place by the Chinese. The whole building felt really Chinese (like duh). Unfortunately, we could not take pictures inside the building, but KF managed to capture a few shots of the building's grand exterior.

After that, we made our way back to the entrance of the grounds to gather back into the tour bus. It was really a hot blisteringly sunny day. But I was glad it didn't rain, like some people warned it would. Off then, to our next Ayutthaya-n destination.