We started our day with a coffee run before piling into a Grab car (the local version of Uber) and headed off to the National Museum. The drive took about an hour through busy streets, including the heart of Chinatown. The community is in full preparation for the upcoming lunar new year.

We arrived at the National Museum and spent the next few hours exploring.. The Wang Na (Front Palace) complex is composed of several historical buildings near the Grand Palace. It was originally built in 1782 as a royal residence for Prince Viceroys (i.e., a home for brothers or sons of the king who were “next in line”). The role faded as the last viceroy died and the palace was abandoned. In 1887 King Rama V moved the Royal museum to the site. In 1926, King Rama VII established it as a national museum. The collections and buildings have expanded over the years to include exhibits about history of the Thai people, art, fine arts and archeology.

Just as we were developing “museum back” from the strain of walking through amazing exhibits, we found a restaurant on the site. It was surprisingly quiet and the Pad Thai was rejuvenating.

The museum housed too much to take in all at once but we tried. We appreciated the statuary and the numerous depictions of gods and Buddha. Happily there was great signage in English telling us what we were looking at.

Greg has become an expert at booking our Grab Cars and we left the museum to check out the International Fashion Company. A kind man at the boat pier on our first day had suggested this was a great place to get “bespoke” clothing made. We were welcomed in and the hard sell began. It became clear that this was not going to work for us as the sales people were eager to tell us about the material available but not about the cost. Apparently having 6 perfectly tailored shirts was the starting point. This was definitely a tourist trap that left us feeling like we had just stepped into a time-share sale. We left without buying and started looking for beer.

We returned to our residence for a bit of a relax before venturing out again. We are getting into the rhythm here. Taking a mid afternoon break is needed in this climate. Our evening adventure was a trip to the Pink Bar in a high rise building near our residence. We took the elevator to the 61 floor and took the opportunity to relax, take in the view and share a delicious ($388 Cnd, 8800 Baht) bottle of Beaujolais. The view made the indulgence worth it. We watched the sun set over the city. It is a vast sprawl housing 12 million people.

We finished our evening with a Middle Eastern meal and returned to our residence to crash heavily and prepare for tomorrow’s visit to another museum and another market.