Gretchen's Blog

Today I just hired a driver to take me to a couple of more places, Wat Pho, the reclining Buddha, A curry shop and finally the Jim Thompson house.

Wat Pho is even more interesting than the Emerald Buddha, it’s huge and gold. There is a massage school on the same grounds as well as a Buddhist school. Of course I had to ask what the Buddhist monk wore under their robe. It’s the same as what Scots wear under their kilt. No worry about a breeze blowing up these things though.



The curry shop was closed because it was Sunday, sigh but the driver said it was a good local shop so I will try again this week.

The Jim Thompson House was OK, maybe a little oversold to the Americans because it makes them feel good.

I got back in the car and the driver asked if I wanted to go shopping. This wasn’t a guided tour so I figured he would take me to some typical set of shops. Wrong. It happened again, first a jewelry store and silk shop. I got high pressured sales tactics. They were showing me rings with $1500 price tags; hell I don’t wear much jewelry. She asked what kind of jewelry I liked and I replied, Silver Indian jewelry, which is true but I also knew they were very unlikely to have anything like that in stock. Finally we move over to the silk and she tries to sell me some overpriced stuff. Finally I told her I was uncomfortable and she asked why? I told her I was used to looking at an item with a price tag on it and deciding whether or not I wanted to buy. She told me that if I wanted that I should go to the department store (there was disgust in her voice.) I told her she is probably right and that I was sorry but I didn’t want anything that day.

The second store he took me to was a tailor shop. Like I need a suit. Hell if I thought I was going to be the same size every year it would be worth it to invest in something so nice.

It made me feel really cheap not to buy anything.