I usually rave on about interacting with local residents when you travel and the interaction with had on this day is certainly one that is for the memory books as we also got to see a few other places that we would have otherwise thought to add to the itinerary as well as the local guard of Wat Pho who gave me a private tour of the temple. Memories, I tell ya. Just like my, I told you about my experience with the driver who took as to the wrong part of Bangkok in my previous post. When plans don’t go as planned, what happens next is sometimes better than what was planned.
Below are the pictures were taken while seeing the city’s sights from the back of a Tuk Tuk. I hope they allow you to feel as if you came along for the ride.
I am going to take you for a ride around Bangkok. Hold on to your seat as we take off on a Bangkok Tuk Tuk tour. I took these pictures on our last day in Bangkok as we were taking off to visit Phuket that evening. My, what a last day it was! Having been to Cambodia and parts of Bangkok, we had a few incidents where people would ask for a tip for even giving you directions.
Listen, Mr Local Man, Bee may be travelling like she doesn’t care(see what I did there), but make no mistake she works for every penny used for these trips and does not pluck money from the rich foreign tree that you think she has in her backyard. I say that because on this day my faith in reconnecting with locals had been restored after many a mishap.
The day before had also ended with a little mishap that I told you about, on how we fell asleep in our rental car and found that our driver had driven us to the wrong place. It ended well, but then we also got back too late to check out Wat Pho, the temple with the 46-meter gold reclining Buddha.
When we go there, I also got an opportunity to have a private tour but couldn’t go further because my boyfriend decided to wander off in another direction so rather than losing each, I cut a once in a lifetime private tour of Wat Pho short. I will tell you more about that in another post. All of these events meant that the following day I was keen to see a bit more before leaving and I Wat Pho at the top of my list before I left the city.
When we arrived at Wat Pho, we found out that it was closed as a lot of the Buddhas were having a celebration. A day when the trainees become buddhas, I am not sure of the correct term. When we found this out I was a little disheartened and looking like lost tourists with a map. My boyfriend and I were approached by a man. Here I was, my first thought was what does he want for helping us.
After explaining why a lot of the roads were shut off and why Wat Pho was closed. He then recommended we head to one of the oldest temples in Bangkok and the first to have a reclining Buddha in Thailand. It also doesn’t open to tourist usually but because Wat Pho was closed it was. He also hailed a Tuk Tuk and negotiated a tour of the city on the way to the Temple(post to come) all for $5!!
We got chatting and him telling us about the city sights to make up for our fumbled last day plans, all without wanting a thing in return was refreshing considering the few days I had had previous to this where Tuk Tuk drivers or people wandering the tourist sights wanted a penny for even telling you where the entrance or ticket office was.
Bangkok Tuk Tuk Tours
There is a variety of tours available in Bangkok and Thailand in general. We managed to do a combination of guided and self-guided tours in Bangkok. These range from tuk tuk tours, bike tours, night tours, a combination of tuk tuk tours and boat tours on the canal, Bangkok evening tours both private and group tours. Check out the link to see tours available. You can also check out my posts on Thailand too.
Have you had a taste of life in BKK yet? What was your experience?
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I've never been to Bangkok but heard lot of interesting things about the city!
xo Vanessa from http://www.TheTrendique.com
Its really beautiful! Well worth checking out.
Great post and pictures to boot. Can your remember the Bangkok tuk tuk price?
Hey it was only $5. A bargain for the Bangkok tuk tuk tour in my books.
Hey, did you do the Tuk Tuk hire in Bangkok in advance?
Hi, no, we hailed one on the post no need to book in advance.