27/3/25
It was almost imperceptible that we were floating until the morning. Then bow waves of the boats churning up the river started colliding with us. Jonathan put some coffee on and swung on the back of the boat in a hammock. Frankie was feeling a little tired and stayed in the cabin for a little longer.
Roger came down and got into a discussion with Jonathan about the Thai peoples lives and aspirations since covid. He believes that people were very happy to live on their farms and have a modest life, rather than return to the city. He thought of this negatively. As a result the salaries of staff from healthcare to hotels had to increase. Leading to the climb in the cost of living across the globe. Something we have experienced ourselves. Nowhere we have been is actually ‘dirt cheap’ anymore.
Today we could finally visit the museum. Potentially the largest in south east Asia. A short walk from the boat, sat the old palace complex. The buildings repurposed. We toured through halls full of centuries old artefacts. Often their discovered location was unknown; they’d been repatriated. The museum also housed relics from across south east Asia itself.
There were more images of Buddha than one could imagine, glass cabinets full of ceramics and rooms dominated by ornately carved cabinets. There was even a ‘hangar’ to hold the royal procession chariots and palanquins. Two buildings were the Thai style residence and the European style residence of King Pinklao. The latter being quite an unusual place. We meandered through the extensive network of rooms for several hours. We had to hang around for half an hour at the end. Some kind of event had closed the temple until 1pm. We pounded in at 12:30pm, much to their annoyance. Supposedly housing the second most important Buddha image, after the emerald, we ended up only seeing a replica. We did see the nice murals though.
From the museum we headed to the fabled Khao San road. We didn’t have any expectations. There were rows and rows of stalls selling tacky clothes and bags. We’d been hopeful for some interesting food stalls but there was nothing but the typical meat grilling occurring. Not a place worth visiting in our opinion, maybe it was different 20 years ago.
Round the corner was the coin museum. We went inside, it was supposed to be a good museum, but then we found out we had to wait 40 minutes for a tour to actually see any coins. We decided not to bother. We managed to find a quiet way back to the boat by going through the university, close to the river.
The boat was an enjoyable place to relax for two reasons. Firstly, there was air conditioning. Secondly, we weren’t enclosed in a box that meant you could be anywhere in the world. We could see the river, the sky and then there was the bustling amulet market right next door. We’d completely underestimated how important the amulets are to Thai people.
We were due to meet Tim. He’d managed to make his way back to Bangkok on the train, after having some island time. It was exciting to meet people again. We met at Tha Maharaj next to our boat and took the 4.5 baht ferry across the river to Wang Lang. It is puzzling why it isn’t just 5 baht. We’d picked a vegan restaurant another 15 minutes walk away. Tim seemed to be interested in the vegan philosophy.
Just off the typically slightly rundown looking street we found Vegan Mahanakhon. It had a perfect, brand new building. It was slightly more upmarket than we’d frequented so far and we had high hopes. It was air conditioned, and they gave us all slippers to wear at the door. The menu was gigantic and we casually browsed it for at least 10 minutes. Our discussion of cycling was intertwined with our food choices.
Tim ordered ‘Massaman with tri-coloured yam’ curry, while we went for ‘Thai-style Neem’ and ‘Earthstar mushroom with climbing wattle’ curry. As always it came out quicker than expected. Our high hopes were immediately dashed. The neem was incredibly bitter and our curry was a little underwhelming. Tim’s food looked magnificent however. Darn it! At least we had good company. Tim was fun to be around, though we felt like some parts of the discussion were lost in translation.
We walked back through the market and went back across the river. This time using the less frequent ferry to Tha Phra Chan. We said goodbye to Tim once again. With lofty hopes to see him again later. We strolled back through the now silenced amulet market to reach the boat. In our cabin we ate some fruit and tried to relax amongst our thoughts of leaving Bangkok in the morning.
Surly They Won't Make It 