info in bangkok - going to grand palace by river boat?

Is it possible to go to Grand Palace boat? Where can I take the boat?
I'll be staying at Meritus at the end of Silom Road.

Can we take any canal sight seeing boat without having to book a
packaged sightseeing tour?

Thanks for your informations

No problem. Check at the hotel for the hours of operation for the Grand
Palace. They do close admittions some time before actual shut down.
Regards, s


"Tony" wrote in message
om...
Is it possible to go to Grand Palace boat? Where can I take the boat?
I'll be staying at Meritus at the end of Silom Road.

Can we take any canal sight seeing boat without having to book a
packaged sightseeing tour?

Thanks for your informations

Just take care

you are not allowed in with
short
slippers
short sleeves.

they will supply you ( free of charge) with
shirt with long sleeve
long trousers
rubber shoes

if it is warm enough. it is the worst of the tortures..
you will have to surrender yr passport to get these things..
take care..
"Tony" ha scritto nel messaggio
om...
Is it possible to go to Grand Palace boat? Where can I take the boat?
I'll be staying at Meritus at the end of Silom Road.

Can we take any canal sight seeing boat without having to book a
packaged sightseeing tour?

Thanks for your informations

"Tony" wrote in message
om...
Is it possible to go to Grand Palace boat? Where can I take the boat?

yes. take the skytrain to the river. you can catch the public river taxi
boat for a very small amount of money. look at a map to find the stop near
the Grand Palace. also, these taxi boats go to lots of places such as Wat
Po, Wat Arun, near Khao San Road, etc.

Can we take any canal sight seeing boat without having to book a
packaged sightseeing tour?

yes. you can book a long-tail boat at the river. but, read about doing
this in one of the guidebooks first.

another suggestion. the public river taxi folks might still run sightseeing
boats up and down the river on Saturdays. it was 75 baht for the day and
included a guide, guidebook, and water. you could get on and off these at
popular attractions (Grand Palace, royal barges, etc.) all day long.
tickets were on sale at the stop at the river end of the skytrain so check
there. never listen to taxi or even worse, tuk-tuk drivers!

have fun.

This may help:
The beauty about this tour is that you can start it
anywhere that the skytrain goes to. So, make your way to the nearest
skytrain station and once you get there, you have to find the easiest
way to get to Saparn Taksin station. If you are on the Silom line, this
is easy, just get on the train that says that it is going to Saparn
Taksin and get off there. If you get on the skytrain on the Sukumvit
line, you will have to make your way to Siam station and once there,
will have to change on to the train going to Saparn Taksin. All pretty
easy really. The skytrain is relatively new in Bangkok and service
commenced on the most auspicious occasion of HM The King's 72nd
birthday, 5th December 1999. Since it opened, getting around Bangkok
has never been the same.

As you make your way around the sky train you
will get a nice elevated view of the city, a city that looks far better
from the comfort of the sky train than it does from ground level. In
the area around and just after Sala Daeng station, you will be going
past the commercial district of the city and will see some of the
tallest and flashest buildings in the Thai capital, many of them with
the banners denoting that they house the Thai office of international
banks and multinationals.

When you arrive at Saparn Taksin station,
you need to exit and walk towards the river. You should notice that
there are two small piers there and one, just to your left a little,
should have a sign saying Chao Praya Express Boat. That is the boat
that you want to take. But, do not go to the pier yet... You should
notice that you are underneath a bridge and a little to your right is a
flight of stairs. Walk up the few short flights of stairs and walk
across the bridge. From the bridge you can get a nice view up the
river, looking roughly in a northerly direction. You can get a nice
angle from here if you want to photograph all of the big hotels on the
edge of the river, as below. You can walk across the bridge to the
other side and go down the stairs at the other side. Walk to the bottom
of them and you should see a small boat. This boat just goes backwards
and forwards across the river at the very reasonable price of 2 baht per
person. Take the boat across to the other side, back to where you were.
Once you have got off this boat, you want to go to the Chao Praya
Express Boat pier that will be just a little over to your right.




Now, it is important to note that you want to take a boat that is
heading from left to right, i.e. towards all those big hotels that you
can see over on the right. As an option, you can take a boat heading
down river, that is right to left. There are just three stops down to
the end of the river. If you decide to take this option, just get on
another boat heading back up the river. You can get some nice river
photos if you go down this way. The fare to the end of the line is 6
baht.

When you get on the boat, tell the ticket seller that you want
to go to Ta Dien and the fare should be 10 baht. As you head up the
river, you will get an excellent view of many of Bangkok's, and indeed
the world's, finest hotels. On the right, and not looking nearly
impressive from the outside as one may expect from it's reputation is
the Oriental Hotel. On the same side of the river and in the immediate
vicinity are the Sheraton and The Shangri-La. Directly opposite the
Oriental Hotel is the recently built Peninsula Hotel. As you go
further up the river, you will start to see more of the old city with
several Buddhist temples on either side of river. The ever impressive
Wat Arun, or in English, The Temple Of Dawn is an impressive site on the
western side of the river. This temple is the marker to tell you that
you are almost at the port where you should get off, Ta Dien.

When you
have got off at Ta Dien, you simply have to walk about ten metres and
get on to the cross river ferry that will take you over the river to Wat
Arun. This ferry used to cost a very reasonable 1 baht to cross the
river but the authorities had the cheek to increase the fare by 100% so
it now costs a whopping 2 baht to go over. Note that while on this
ferry, it is an ideal place to take some snaps from and you should try
and think about the location of the sun when taking your to be cherished
holiday snaps. Remember, you want that sun to be behind you for best
results!



Once you make it over to the other side, you can have a
look around Wat Arun, pictured here. It's only 20 baht to get in but
that is still too much given that Thais get in for less than that. In
all truth and honesty, this temple looks better from the other side of
the river and is largely unremarkable up close but as it is so cheap to
get over the river, it's worthwhile looking at it. There are a lot of
scam artists in the area around here selling the usual junk at the usual
inflated for foreigners prices. You also get the obligatory souvenir
sellers, the ice-cream sellers, the Coke at crazy price sellers etc.
This can be a nice place to sit and relax and enjoy watching life on the
river. Beware of the cut out boards with pictures of traditional Thai
costumes painted on them and a hole for you to put your head through so
your picture can be taken "wearing a traditional Thai costume". In the
bottom corner, most inconspicuously placed, it says 40B meaning the cost
for a photo is 40 B (for Thais it is free). This is a scam so don't
bother taking pictures here.

The Chao Praya River is one of the most
interesting places in Bangkok and there is always something going on
with long tail boats zooming foreign tourists around, barges
transporting cargo up and down and the police boats hunting for wayward
Khao Sarn Road backpackers who may have found a nice spot on side of the
river to have a toke on cheap Thai weed. If you know anything about
engines, you will notice that a lot of the long tail boats have old car
engines running them, ranging from the ever popular 1600 twin cam Toyota
engine to a few American V8s.

After you have finished wandering around
and presumably photographing Wat Arun, it is time to head back across
the river. Once you get back over there, walk right through the pier
building and you should come out into a small side street with a lot of
tuktuk drivers who will try to convince you to allow them to take you
somewhere - walk past them and about another 50 or so metres and you are
at an intersection where you can see a street right in front of you and
two large compounds with white walls on either side. Here you have Wat
Po on the right and the Grand Palace on the left. These are two of the
most impressive and famous temples in Thailand. It's up to you which
one you visit (or you can see both) but I personally prefer Wat Po as it
is less crowded, costs only 20 baht to get in as opposed to 200 for The
Grand Palace and has the impressive reclining Buddha. The style of
architecture in the two temples is fairly similar so I will stick my
neck out and say that unless you are a big fan of Thai Buddhist temples,
seeing one is enough. So, go for a wander around either of the temples.


After you have seen the temples, you can abort the tour and head to
wherever by taxi (or any other means) or continue with the tour. If you
decide to continue, you can now head up towards Sanam Luang, a big,
somewhat nothing park where Thais often go at the weekend and then on to
Khao Sarn Road, the backpackers domain of Bangkok. Or, if this does not
appeal, you can just return to where you came from. Depending on the
time of year, you may want to walk up to Sanam Luang. This big park
attracts lots of Thais to the many fortune tellers, tarot card readers
and so forth at the weekend. Even the poorer Thais can be seen throwing
silly money at these impostors to hear some sort of positive words about
their future. Sunday is the best day in this area, particularly from
November to February when the weather is best.

You need to head to the
main road Sanam Chai Road and this then leads on to Rachadarmnoen Road.
As you walk along Rachadarmnoen Road, Sanam Luang, the large park will
be on your left. You need to follow this road for about 1.5 km which
can be hard going in the hot season as you are now heading for the
Golden Mount, aka Wat Saket.

Walking along Rachadarmnoen Road, you
will see a huge monument at a large roundabout. This is Democracy
Monument. Don't ask me what it represent as I'm not entirely sure...
You need to cross the road at sometime so that you are on the opposite
side of the road to McDonalds which is very close to the monument. Walk
another few hundred metres and you will see the Golden Mount. This
under rated tourist attraction is a strange sort of Thai temple set on a
hill that allows really good views of the old part of Bangkok. Go for a
wander around, take some photos and enjoy yourself. Once you have
finished there, you want to wander back down and on to the main road.
You should see that the main road goes over a bridge. Under this bridge
is a canal and there is a canal boat stop there. This particular stop
is the last one on the line so you do not have to worry about getting on
the wrong boat as there is only one to get on. Get on the boat and ask
to go to World Trade Centre. The journey shouldn't take much more than
12 minutes and you will get to see some interesting places along the
journey including the houses of people who live right alongside the
canal - some are flash while others are less than desirable but they are
all interesting. Twelve or so minutes later and the boat will make it
back to World Trade Centre, the large shopping centre right in the
centre of Bangkok. From here you can get a bus or a cab to anywhere. I
hope you enjoyed Stickman's Tour Of Bangkok. Depending on what options
you take, the whole tour will take about 4-5 hours.


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