Lucky Buddha Day

We woke up this morning at the brink of dawn ready for our first adventure in Bangkok. After a long night last night of very unsuccessful travel planning (who would have thought that leaving a trip open ended could be so stressful??), Lauren and I were ready to start fresh today. We woke up to a plate of scrambled eggs and toast made to order in our hostel lobby, along with coffee and tea. Even though I am not typically fond of eggs, the meal was already a nice change of pace to break up our 4th meal straight of rice. I downed those eggs like there was no tomorrow!

We took off from our hostel with a map in hand, our plan being to hit up Wat Pho (the home of one of the largest Buddha statues in Thailand). We decided it would be nice to walk so we whipped out our map and attempted to navigate this foreign city. Within 2 minutes we were completely lost and covered in our own balmy filth. [We've come to terms with the fact that we are never going to look cute on this trip, and with that we owned our sweat stained clothing and darted around excitedly] After a half an hour of walking in the wrong direction we were approached by a man who shouted, "Wow, you are so white" in a thick Thai accent. What we didn't know at the time is that this man, named Nom, would change the game plan of our entire next month.

Everything I've studied in my Thai guide books have warned me to keep a watchful eye on overly friendly locals. When this man approached us and started giving us advice and marking up our map, the cynic in me was automatically reluctant to trust him. He informed us it was "lucky Buddha day", and that all of the Tuk Tuks (a small motorbike with a bench seat) in town charged next to nothing to ride. From what I gathered the Thai government funds Tuk Tuk drivers on these special holidays to promote tourism in the city. He informed us to make sure we only got on a Tuk Tuk with a yellow license plate, as anything else could easily be a big scam. 

He flagged us a Tuk Tuk and told the driver to only charge us $20 baht (the equivalent of less than $1 USD) for as long as we wanted. He drove us to a temple (where we were told to ask Buddha for our luck) and then told us he was going to take us to a Tailor in town. From everything I've read this is a big no-no, and I thought for sure we were going to get robbed. We walked in to the tailor, checked it out for 3 minutes and then left while our driver in the meantime got credit from the Thai govt. 

We asked him to take us to another govt run tourist agency, and sat down with a really kind lady named Mamm. We told her about all of our frustrations with booking our entire trip, and that we had finally given up after spending hours trying to book flights and figure our bus schedules without assistance. She asked where we wanted to go, and within 2 minutes she had our itinerary completely mapped out for us. We booked an all inclusive, specialized itinerary for around $60 USD/ day for the next month. That includes all airfare, buses, and hostels throughout Southeast Asia. We were thrilled, and then headed off to Wat Pho. 

The temple was spectacular to say the least. It was one of the most incredible man made things I have ever seen. Every piece of the architecture was well planned and crafted with ornate detail. The reclining Buddha was massive...probably about 80-100 Feet long and maybe 20-30 feet high. After being Buddha-ed out, Lauren had her fortune told to her by a man who told her she will fall in love with a man who has a large forehead, and that she would have kidney problems in her future, should she choose to drink alcohol.

We later found out that "lucky Buddha day" happens four times a month. If we can have this great of luck every single week, I can't even begin to imagine how epic this trip is going to be.

random thing I liked about Thailand today: the T-shirt we saw a Thai girl wearing that read "I hate Texas!"

Thing I disliked about Thailand today: the whiffs of poo, then incense, then fish, then chicken guts, then back to poo.