Waiting for the Water Taxi

Waiting for the Water Taxi, originally uploaded by Robbi Baba.

It was an adventure just getting here! We had to keep asking directions and actually ran into one of those characters the guide books all warn you about. He insisted that the Grand Palace was closed and we should go with his friend in a taxi to a special temple that was even better. Good Grief!
This was our one and only day to explore Bangkok and there really wasn't any question about where we should go. The Grand Palace was our destination. It just turned out that getting there was more of an adventure than we expected.
For example. When we arrived at the taxi stop up river, after a harrowing boat ride, we had to walk up through this narrow and very grubbly little alley way where someone was doing something with raw meat. The smell was so incredibly revolting I literally gagged and almost threw up. We had to pass through this bad dream alley--there was no other way to go--and I'm sure we were all thinking the same thing: "This can't possibly be the right place! We've been dumped off somewhere horrible and we'll be lucky to get out of here alive".
But of course it was the right place. We finally emerged onto a fairly normal looking boulevard and the Grand Palace was right across the street.