Thailand - Day Two (part two) - Bangkok

After lunch we headed to the Golden Mount, another temple, but this time with stairs (300 of them). After climbing up and down, I was getting tired so we took a Tuk Tuk to Khao San or backpacker's street.
No, this is not a safe vehicle, but it's cheap. Typically you can get where you want for 40 - 60 Baht. The green Tuk Tuk is one of the nicer looking ones we saw on our trip.

Backpacker's street is just tons of stores and street vendors and many men trying to sell me a suit. Suits are pretty cheap, with offers like 1 Suit, 2 Pants, 2 Shirts, 2 Ties being about $150. They take your measurements, and make the suit for you in 1-2 days. It's a great deal, but the salespeople are awful. Insanely pushy. I refused them all.

We then head to the river. It's just as large as the Mississippi and constantly used for transportation. Bangkok used to be just like Venice, but then they filled in about 90 percent of their canals. We took a longtail boat tour and once again Lisa proved her brilliance. The price was 1300 Baht each. Within a minute Lisa had us paying 1200 total.
I had no clue it was negotiable. We had our own longtail boat and took a 1.5 hour tour through the canals (known as klongs).

After a shower we head to a corner bar and drink some Chang and Singha beer. They come in single bottles and double bottles. All singles are served with koozies, which we finally realize are worth the slightly extra money since they remain cold the entire time.

Then it's time for Bangkok to screw us over a little bit. We head to Harmonique. A Thai restaurant. We get close taking the Sky Train which is clean, air-conditioned and cheap. We bought the 20-trip pass. Then we walk... and walk, trying to read street signs we think we are very close. We even have a tuk tuk driver say "Harmonique? 40 Baht," so we are convinced we are close, and don't see the point paying this guy $1.20. So we keep walking. Finally exhausted from walking approximately 72 kilometers throughout the day, we get into a tuk tuk. The standard is to negotiate beforehand and we explain where we are going. He says 20 Baht, and acts like he knows the place. We get in and he immediately takes off, I think we must have been really fair away. Lisa thinks we are getting screwed. Lisa wins again. After 10 minutes he takes us to some unknown restaurant with no name and an owner waiting to seat us. We keep saying "Harmonique" they keep saying, "Yes, Thai food." Just awful, plus we have no idea where the hell we are. And no one seems to know English.

At this point a couple is dropped out of a cab. They look confused. Lisa talks to them. Turns out this couple from Australia was in Bangkok last year, and were dropped off at this exact same restaurant. So they knew it took about a 10 minute walk to get back to a main street. The lesson - don't trust drivers in Bangkok.

We finally get to Harmonique and realize we were about a 1/2 block away before the tuk tuk driver got a hold of us. The food turns out to be average.