Our Tour Officially Begins

Today we woke up early, and prepared to do some official touring with a guide.  We started the day by meeting our local guide Ron, and heading over to the old Royal Palace.  We used the local river boats to get over to the palace and only managed to lose 2 of the people on the tour on the way.

The palace was exceptionally beautiful.  There were an array of ornately decorated buildings, pagodas, and shrines.  We toured around the outer and central parts of the old palace, and culminated the experience by seeing the Emerald Buddha.  This is one of the holiest Buddhas in all of Thailand.  I was actually a little disappointed in it, because it was a tiny Buddha (about a foot and a half tall) sitting on top of a 50 foot golden   thrown.  I was definitely expecting a grander Buddha, but it was very nice.

After the Palace, we headed back to the pier, but this time for a private tour down the river and canals.  This was very interesting, as the homes along the canal were the shanty town houses on stilts.  It had that dirty poor aspect that we were looking for.  Also on the ride, we passed a bunch of both Thai and Chinese Buddhist Temples, the Royal Barge Museum, and some really nice houses mixed into the shanties randomly.  At the end of the canal, we did some catfish feeding, then turned around and headed back to the hotel for free time.  On the way back, we had our first exposure to some local fruits.  We were eating Mangosteens.  They are incredibly sweet and juicy.  I really liked them, and wonder if I’ll be able to get them back in New York.

During free time, we walked around for a few and grabbed lunch.  It was so hot and humid, probably somewhere in the 90’s with about 80% humidity, that we ended up with half the group hanging out in the pool for a few hours after that.

   At 5 o’clock we headed to the train station and boarded the overnight train to head into Chang Mai.  We ate some dinner on the train, drank a little, hung out with some group members for a bit, and then went to sleep.  Overall it was pretty decent, but uneventful (nothing like Monte and Jourdan’s 26 hour train ride to Florida on Amtrack).