For the first few days it is very difficult to avoid the usual tourist path through the city. The Grand Palace and the many, many Wats that are sprinkled around the river are well worth joining the tourist queue. So if indeed you follow this path, as I totally think you should, everything you will see in your first 48+ hours in Bangkok will be completely encrusted in gold.
Inside a Wat near the Golden Mount.
Bangkok is crazy.
My mission on day one was simple. Go see the Grand Palace. I had directions from my hostel: take the river boat to the end. First example of BKK craziness: the workers on the boat. They balance on the edge of the boat collecting passengers' fares (a whoppin' 10 Baht ~ 25-30 cents). The boats whip down the canal at awesome speeds creating pretty impressive wakes so the ride is similar to riding a zodiac. A multitude of low slung bridges span the canal at reasonably frequent interludes. A few of said bridges are actually quite low slung forcing the driver to physically lower the roof and the workers to duck or get knocked into the canal. It sort of reminded me of a live video game being played in front of my eyes.
I have a pretty awesome tuk tuk story that started immediately after disembarking from the canal boat but that will have to wait. I'm boarding a train south to Chumphon tonight and will hopefully be on Koh Tao by tomorrow afternoon.
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