what a day we have had. After a Thai breakfast of fried rice, chicken & noodles washed down with a decent cup of java we headed to the Grand Palace, about a 20 min walk from the hotel; an expected of  high of 34C means getting an early start.  shortly into our walk an older man on the street begins to chat us up and teach us a little Thai.  with our basic hotel map in hand he recommends a few other sites before the palace opens at noon, a bit later than normal due to the king some thing or other.  a tuk tuk should cost no more than 40 baht to take us to all these sites...cheapy cheapy I am am thinking.  He hails a driver and negotiates the price for all these sites including a special stop at a factory which is having a one day sale..what the heck it was only 40 baht. by now red flags should be going, but no, steal of a deal, we see a reclining buddha temple, happy/lucky Buddha temple, then the factory..what, this is a tailor shop...beautiful designer clothes they can tailor make and send directly to your home...almost had us but the price was a bit much and we left empty handed.  Megan is spouting how she is the holiday fairly and this is a great start to our trip..still no red flags.
Next stop, another clothing factory, we pleasantly declined, well... Our happy driver was not so impressed and show us a card he would receive 5 liters of fuel for free if we cooperated.  So off we went to the next factory, more up a gals alley... A few hundred bucks later and we both walked away with some beautiful blue topaz jems, a happy driver and finally a lift to the palace.  time check....1:00pm close to 4 hours later we arrived in the heat of the afternoon and a bit weary.  we hung our heads as we were taken,again, but happy we bought ourselves nice gifts.
the palace grounds were nice, very ornate, or over the top for our liking.  there was some renovations happening and a mourning service for someone that passed about a month ago so parts were closed to the public.  that's fine, we were getting tired and ready to head back, just needed a bit of direction to get us started, and a bit more along the way but we made our way back.  the city has many streets/ side walks lined with shops, we walked through blocks of flowers, I have never seen so many in my life.  then it was through Indian town, I laughed, it sounded so funny and totally unexpected. we almost walked right pass the hotel, I noticed KFC on the corner and Megan recognised the street name, low and behold, our hotel was across the street..yeah we made it, one hour later.  A few piña coladas and back to the room to relax before hooking up with our tour group at 6:00. it's starting to rain, we were told the city may be flooded in a few days, good thing we are leaving tomorrow.  some of the shops have built concrete barriers in front or sand bag walls to keep the water at bay, hopefully it's not needed.