bangkok and chiangmai

day two - 8th feb 02. fri. caught the service bus from oakwood to chong nong si bts at 10.30am. took bts to national stadium, and first stop to mahboonkrong. basically a giant shopping mall, with a dizzying number of shops and goods for sale. from mbk, we took a tuktuk intending to go to the grand palace. however, the tuktuk guy was quite adamant about bringing us someplace en route to our final destination which we kept refusing. we ended up paying an extra 20 baht from previous agreed 60 baht for him to bring us direct to the grand palace. which he did not! we ended up at some wat (temple) not knowing it was not the grand palace. the wat was pretty nice though, had some pretty pics of it. on our way out of the wat, we were waylaid by some tuktuk tout offering us a 20 baht tuktuk tour of famous wats around the area. once up the tuktuk, driver says we have to stop at some thai export fair, very good deal, and last day today. he oso explained he gets free gasoline when he brings ppl there. so we thought ok, what the heck, we can drop by. he brought us to this lucky buddha wat first, and we met a thai guy who claimed to be a gems trader from chiangmai, stopping in bkk for holidays and flying off to sydney tmrw. he oso said he made some fairly good deals at the thai export, and it is the last day today. i dunno, maybe he thought the thick gaudy yellow chain around his neck that he was trying to pass off as gold will convince us. anyway, we later concluded that they are all in cahoots, from the tuktuk tout, driver, to the gem trader. after the wat, we went to the so-called thai export fair which was just one jewellery shop, with this shady thai guy in a business suit. perhaps coz of our skin color and our backpacker dress code, we were shoo-ed out of the shop in less than 2 minutes. tuktuk driver informs we have to be there for about 15 minutes for him to get gasoline coupon. so off we went to another jewellery shop, this time much bigger and more crowded, so we managed to stay about 15 minutes, and our happy tuktuk driver got his gasoline. next, he brought us to the golden mount, the entrance sign states that this is the most precious historical place in thailand, but our lonely planet apparently does not think so. after our golden mount, we went back to meet the tuktuk driver but he has left. in his place, there is another tuktuk guy who offers us to bring us to our final destination but we have to visit yet another thai export. fed-up, we told him we prefer to walk. so we tried to find our way to the grand palace. after what seemed like a very long walk, with several stops to ask for directions, we finally found the grand palace. that was almost 3pm, and the palace closes at 3.30pm. waylaid (again!) at the entrance by some guy dressed like a policeman or officer of some sort and he tried to convince us that we cannot go into the palace anymore, why not take a tuktuk ride of the wats around? argh! get away get away! hmm. after which we went to hualomphong train station via bus to buy chiangmai tickets. bus number informed by tuktuk driver there trying to get us on his tuktuk for some wat tour, only useful thing we got out of any tutktuk guy so far. train tix all sold out except 3rd class hard seat, so we took that. then back to mahboonkrong for dinner, and hrc at siam square for drinks. after which, went to patphong, this night market. we tried to walk into one of the alleys, and this guy there caught my arm. tried to shake him off, but he kept holding onto my arm saying something in thai which i do not understand. another thai realised we weren't local and explained he wanted to see my id. by then, i was quite upset with guy for bruising my arm, so i shook him off and left the alley. after which, we went back to apartment. by then, hweelim has went home to singapore so we had apt to ourselves.