Bangkok has been a challenge for us. We were greeted by hot and humid temperatures of over 40C, prostitutes a street over from our Air BB, feral cats, and the general busyness and pollution of a major capital city. That being said, we made up our minds on our last night to visit the famous Buddhist Wat Arun Temple. All nighttime pictures revealed a gorgeous golden shrine - and Trip Advisor does rank it as the number one site to visit in Bangkok.
We started to plot our journey using Google maps, only to realize the temple closed at 6pm. It was 5:12, and we were a good hour away. Oops. Should have looked at this a bit sooner. We discussed options, and decided to go for it anyway. An outside view would still be spectacular.
Google gave us multiple travel options, and we decided on the one where we could maximize our BTS Skytrain day pass: BTS green, transfer to BTS blue, then transfer to BTS gold, and finish with a 38 minute walk to the temple.
Things were going remarkably well. Great city views, air conditioned trains, picture worthy river crossing, arrival to the gold train. We hopped off, exited the blue, found the gold and pressed our day pass to the entrance gate. Denied. Try again. Denied again. Guess the gold line was a premium service not included in our day pass. Not sure how we missed that (maybe it was in fine print, or large Thai print that we cannot read ;).
Quick brainstorm and decision. We'd go back a BTS station and walk alongside the river. It was a good plan in theory, but there was no foot path along the river. However, we did land at a pier, and there just so happened to be a shuttle boat bound for Iconsiam. We didn't know what that was, but it was a boat ride and it looked free, so we jumped on. We soon realized Iconsiam is a VERY fancy high-end mall. Perfect. Gayle is always looking to add to her Louis Vuitton collection and you all know how well Paul would handle a fancy Mont Blanc pen!
We disembarked our “sunset boat cruise” and stepped into a patio dance competition with a party atmosphere complete with food trucks and a digital light show. While it was nice to have a look at the Maseratis on display (really!), the best part was probably the skyline view of Bangkok from the 7th floor of the mall.
With smiles on our faces, we reflected that sometimes the result is better than the plan. Our temple adventure grew legs and turned into something much different.
Guess we'll just have to enjoy the pictures of Wat Arun Temple.