Where is the Grand Palace?

July 08 2007: This was my first day, I went to Central Bangkok on my own. Actually, I was supposed to meet two of my friends at Mahidol University who were there for PhD. I was quite excited to meet them in Bangkok even though I didn't meet them that often when we were in Nepal, huh!

I started at 7:00 AM and caught an empty van with the color Chaitya had suggested. I had tried that van earlier and I had experienced the speed of the van with throttle at 140 km/hour. But this time in contrary to my expectation, it was really slow. Stopping at every bus stand and stop, slowing down trying its luck to every group of people waiting for bus, one probably should not expect a speedy travel even though in the low traffic area. Though it looked crazy, but I would suggest never travel in an empty van. I was about to conclude it we reached the toll way and I had a sigh of relief!

It didn't take much time to find my friend who came to pick me up at the monument. But the only thing that confused me was my friend's understanding about sky bridge. He asked me to come up to the skybridge where I was supposed to find him. I looked around and saw more than 4 sky bridges and some of them were pretty much far. I felt quite dejected when I didn't find any clue how to get hold of it. I tried him on his mobile number and asked him again. All he could say was, I should get in the skybridge towards Central Park Hotel. Oh how could I see any Central Park Hotel from such a place! I called him again and this time he said that skybridge was the only one which went round the monument. Then I was pretty much clear that he was talking about the longest skybridge that was below Bangkok Sky Train way. After a few minutes we were exchanging big grin in a nepalese style!

I went to his apartment where he was staying with the other friend. On the way, I saw a beautiful park with a musical fountain. He told me that lots of people would come there in the evening. Some would come for cooling off the heat, some would come with their partner/family for relaxing, while most of them come for physical exercises, also I saw some people jogging and making round to a small pond full of red fishes. Usually the place would be full of people in the evening when, some volunteers taught a yoga to the public along with a background music and a musical water fountain! It seemed to be an ecstatic view to watch. Surely I felt I would like to join the crowd in an evening some time later!

They were quite happy to see me, a friend to talk around anything in Nepalese language ;) We had good lunch together and a good talk. Nepalese food made by nepalese...eaten by Nepalese ...in central Bangkok!!! We had all sort of talk. They were also pretty new to the place and they had not gone far much from the apartment. So I thought probably we should go around and visit some of the attractions in the city. My professor had told me much about the Grand Palace in Bangkok and the Emerald Buddha inside it. It didn't took me much time to persuade them to visit it! Off we went in a taxi @100 baht!

Getting inside the Grand Palace after getting a 250 baht ticket, I felt we did right decision to come in this place. The place was surely a fantastic place for tourist to go around the historical royal palace buildings, the museums and of course the Emerald Buddha...approx. 2 feet high budhha made of green emerald stone.... I would say mesmerizing buddha...so many people watching him, praying, spending some quite time after getting through a soaring heat outside...surely mesmerizing enough. The golden shining painting on the walls of the galleries of some of the monastries were quite eye catching. It was like our Thanka painting. Not ours... Tibetan Thanka paintings that we would normally find at tourist locations in Nepal. Amazingly if you would look at the text in the information brochure and try to match the painting at the walls, you would find a story of Ram and Sita during her abduction by Ravana in Lanka. The brochure had even mentioned that the tale was of Rama of Ayothaya who waged a war to rescue his wife Sita. In fact, I had already visited that place 'Ayuthaya' the ancient city and it was not that difficult for me to recall it. It was really exciting to imagine and link up the strings in the history looking at the painting walls...of course the text written in the information brochure.

But one thing that surely caught me offguard....we came almost to an end of the tour, while keeping good track of the information map given at the gate! But I didn't see any Grand Palace as such. We asked ourselves..."Where is the Grand Palace then?" I tried to trace around the map a number of times but could not locate it! The brochure had a good picture of a building with a big title 'The Grand Palace' but finding the building in the map or in the place was not that easy either. I thought I should better read the information brochure and the text below the title and understand more about it. Well, it didn't take me much time to conclude that the whole place was known as 'The Grand Palace Complex'. It was King Rama I's decision to build the Royal Palace Compound in there, which was not only used to serve as royal residence but also as house for some of the administrative offices (probably like our Singha Durbar where most of the ministries including Prime Minister's office are located inside) and it was given the name as 'Grand Palace'. With that we concluded our half a day tour and got back to the apartment. This time we took metered taxi and only paid 90 baht...huh saved 10 baht?

On the way to return, I said goodbye to my friends and also I invited them to visit my place during any weekend they would prefer. It did not take me much time to find the stand where the vans to AIT used to wait. After confirming, I took a seat and waited. As soon as the van got filled up, we were asked to pay the fare. This time it was 50 baht each. This was 20 baht more than when I came. I thought I got screwed up. I had no choice but to pay him. Off we went and this time surely at the speed of 150 km/hour. On the way, it was heavily raining. I could see the rain flowing up on the windscreen. Shubha had told me about it but I didn't have any chance to watch it. It was true. It was because of the van's speed, the rainwater falling on the windscreen was going up rather than coming down.

Crazily the van came to a halt on the highway that was very near to AIT. I thought it would take us at least to the gate of AIT as normally it used to in the past. Hastily I got off and also I saw a lady in college uniform (in Bangkok almost all colleges were required to wear same uniform: black skirt and white shirt) got off too. Probably she was student in Thammasat University. She was walking quite fast probably to catch up with the classes ...not sure. I called her up...Excuse me...with a smile of course. She looked back and stopped with a surprise! I hurriedly approached her and asked how much she paid to the van. I thought she would understand english but she didn't. I knew 'sip' was called for 10 baht. So, I told her, showing five fingers, I paid 'sip' to the van. And using sign languages, asked her how much money did she pay. Then she answered 50 baht. I got a relief I was not screwed at all. She told me that the van was not of the regular route to AIT and thus charged us more. Oh! goodness! that was the reason. Now what next, we had to talk, it was a bit long walk up to AIT. I tried my best to understand her which level she was in. All I could get out of her was .... she was Commerce and Accounting student in Thammasat University...her english was not that well....She got a call at her mobile by the time we reached AIT gate. But she stopped her mobile and with a big smile said bye bye....c u later..I thought to myself ...oh great ... and I went to AIT gate waving bye to her!