Jo (my Philippine colleague - Josephine), normally goes to church on Sundays at 10am. What I do is that I also follow her to the church area and after that I'll head to the stamp market which is just right in front of the General Post Office. The nice thing is that the Philatetic Services is also open on Sundays till 1pm. And they've put out stamp displays in the post office. I would just drool over those beautiful stamps...

If I really want to buy to my heart's content that day - I think I can declare myself bankrupt already. After getting the flower series and also some other stamps (mostly features of the historical cities/ruins - awesome ones too), I decided I must stop. I spend about 380 baht on stamps (about RM35). Never had I indulge myself so much before. I always think - what the heck, it's not that I'll always get to be in Bangkok.

Then at 11am, I'll meet Jo in front of the church (Assumption Cathedral - near Shangri-La) and we'll go to the Oriental Pier to get on the Chao Phraya Express boat. We stopped at the Tha Tien and went to search for the entrance of Wat Pho. Normally I don't like to bring out my guide book because I didn't want those con people to trick or bother us. Anyway there's one guy who looks like a teacher (with bag) - yah yah... I know you might guess where the story is heading to. I can't really believe why people would like to cheat especially around a temple area. Anyway, he asks us whether we're going to Wat Pho and we said yes. Then he said today was Buddhist day and it's not open till 2pm. So he suggested us to take the tuk-tuk to the Golden Mount Wat Saket. The minute I heard 'tuk-tuk', I was like - okay, we better get away from him. So I said we were not interested and just asked where the entrance was. So he pointed another way. Somehow I really have the travelling luck and some kind of instinct about directios. Despite the fact he pointed to the left, we went the opposite way instead and found our entrance (much more nearer if we go the other way).

I sorta like become a tour guide to Jo although I've never been to Wat Pho. It's easy because I have the book and we just followed to the places of interest from the book and read the descriptions. There were also guides available who approached us but asked for 100 baht for each person. Crazy...

Anyway, had a really fantastic time finding 'treasures' like the reclining Buddha (our first stop), the bodhi tree, the Wat Sanket, the miniature mountain and the massage place. There was also a cultural dance going on in one of the wats. However, the massage place did not open although it's sign says daily opened. I really wanted to try the half hour traditional massage for 120 baht. Maybe next time...

Regards,
Li Li