What Wat? And continuing accommodation fiascos

Hey there Internet! It has been both a good and a bad day, but tomorrow promises to be great!

Let’s get into it. The new guest house was not starting off with much confidence levels, how could it with the cancellation drama? This morning was a bad omen as once I checked out of my old guest house, I could not find the new one on Grab Taxi and the manager at reception was struggling to help me do it. Eventually I came up with something but maybe it would have been better if I had not. Have I mentioned it has still been pouring? The rain was bucketing down the entire morning and afternoon.

When I get to the new place, they are clearly busy with linen and I just want to ask about check-in and if I am too early, if I can leave my bags at reception. The receptionist has barely a word of English, the ladies on the floor, though smiling and friendly don’t understand a single word and there is a completely disinterested man in the background. The receptionist finally appeals to him for help and he comes forward to explain things, his English, while bad, was almost serviceable for what we were trying to achieve. I see they have a card machine and ask to pay for everything with that (I have not asked them for a discount as they clearly have no clue about what happened with me, I had to point out my name from a sheet, that was how much communication was possible). They don’t know how to use the card machine, so I pay for some of the days in cash, awaiting the person who does the card machine and is clearly the person who emailed me.

The receptionist and one of the smiling ladies take my suitcase, including the big one which is bigger than either of them, and we go up a flight of stairs to my room. Other than checking in early, I am rather underwhelmed by everything else so far, unsurprisingly. We get into the room and it is less attractive than it appeared online, how surprising. It has a strange layout and no table or chairs; it has a wardrobe where some things can sit but the big problem is that all the plugs are on one wall with only a tiny table fridge to rest things on and by the way this tiny countertop fridge is sitting on the floor. So, my laptop goes on that when not in use while my phone must precariously perch on a suitcase to charge.

But then comes the piece de resistance, the bathroom. At a basic level it is rudimentary at best and very grim at worst. It has a wall mounted shower head over the floor (my third of the trip so far, so no surprise there), a toilet, a urinal (!) and the sink on the outside of the bathroom and in the room itself. For this I am actually grateful as this is where I brush my teeth and put in contact lenses and where it is clearly cleaner. The bathroom is obviously original, it is old, it is tired and it looks well used. Also, the toilet is soaked clearly from the prior guest’s last shower. Yes, quite disgusting, but that is why I come armed with sanitiser to clean every surface. What is truly unbelievable is hanging from the ceiling, over the urinal, is actual cobwebs with dead and one live spider! How poorly do they clean that so much webbing can develop and more than that, numerous corpses can be present? Having seen this, I am counting down the days and hours until I can move again on Friday.

The only positive news with the accommodation was that the woman I had been emailing was there in the early evening, I could pay the rest of the bill via credit card, no discount, surprise, surprise. And I could articulate to someone the horrendously unacceptable spider situation in the bathroom. They came and swept the ceiling, removing them from the bathroom. This evening I took a shower, a very quick and nervous one, but I did it, one down, three to go – you can bet I am not showering more than once a day here, no matter how much I may need it at any point. The only relief is the room itself seems clean, no dust or bugs or bug corpses here (and I know dirty rooms, with a tour group, I once shared a room with others which had multiple floating dust bunny colonies, that was very disgusting).

Onto the real upside of this place, it’s position in the old city. Within a few hours I saw four Wats, including one of the big ones and probably could have seen another two or three if I had had the energy and it wasn’t raining so much. Before I start describing the Wats, I have to make a disclaimer, I am only vaguely sure of the names, these are the names on Google Maps (useless of course) and what I took a screenshot of before taking photos of each actual Wat. First was Wat Muen Tam, very pretty but actually quite small, the smallest of the Wats I saw today.

Next was quite a walk in the rain to reach Wat Ched Lin, this had a much bigger complex but was very quiet and felt empty, probably due to the rain. It was serene and peaceful though.

Third was Wat Chedi Luang, this is one of the Wats you are meant to do. It’s Chedi (Pagoda) looks ancient but in reality, was built in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century and looks every century of its age, it still remains very impressive. This Wat is a large complex and has a 40 Baht entrance fee and operates like the big Wats in other cities. Even in the rain there were many tourists. I ended up coming in one of the back gates due to my prior stop offs. Near the end of my time I was stopped by one of the guards in shock and told to get one of the modesty cover-ups. Frankly I was surprised as I had come through a gate and not been told I was problematically dressed. I know the rules for modest dressing at the palace or Wats are covered shoulders, no low-cut necklines and no short skirts or shorts. I was wearing a knee length dress but possibly with all the walking it had crept to on or above the knee. I was told I needed to get a sarong to cover up. At this point I had seen a lot of the Wat, I was a bit wet, I was very tired and was in no mood to wear a two-hundred-and-fiftieth-hand sarong. I politely apologised, explained I had come through the gate with no issue but that I had seen what I wanted and I left. Note to self, the blue dress only passes half the time, do not wear for the Wats.

Last was Wat Duang Dee, it was very impressive and housed a number of buildings, it also seemed empty like Wat Ched Lin. But at this point I was too tired to go in and it was raining even more and I was getting wet despite my jacket. So, I took a few photos of the beautiful buildings, soaked in the atmosphere and headed off.

Despite the bad start, it was a good and Wat filled day and I have a tour booked for the morning. It is still unlikely the red hat is going anywhere unless the rain lets up, but I am off touring soon…