Adventuring on a Sunday Afternoon

Today I decided to finally go check out a park I've been wanting to explore.  I did a little research and realized that it's actually 3 parks combined and they are all a little different.  I got a taxi to Chatuchak park, which is the park I first discovered, making me want to come back and explore more.  After walking through this beautiful park (which reminds me so much of the parks in Boston) I ran into a Canadian and asked him where I could rent a bike (I heard you could do this for a dollar and thought that would be a good way to explore this large park).  He taught me how to say "rent bike"  (sounds like 'chow chak-ra-yan') and pointed me to another park and said the bike rentals were on the other side of that park.  So I entered the second park and walked through that.

It was a beautiful, well-kept park full of beautiful flowers, gardens, bridges and water.  I finally ended up at a building and asked a lady if I could rent a bike.  She explained that I was in the Queen's Park where you could not rent a bike.  But she was very nice, gave me a map, and explained where I wanted to go.  I went where she said (after much confusion and meeting a Thai man to help me understand where I was on the map) and ended up in a grove of banana trees.  It was pretty cool to see so many banana trees up close, buuuut it didn't have bikes.  So I walked a bit more and ended up where I was before.  So I asked someone else for help and he pointed me in another direction.  I finally figured out a few landmarks on the map and somehow discovered that the third park was the one where you could rent bikes and that I had actually passed the entrance to that park at least two times as I circled around the Queen's park.  Finally I made it to the third park, asked where I could rent bikes and was directed to the other end of the park.  After walking almost two hours I finally found the bike rentals!  So I rented a bike and rode around that park for a while.  Then I stopped and got some ice cream and ate it by a lake.  It was a beautiful afternoon and there was a nice cool breeze (like the ones you feel before a storm coming) and the smell of fresh cut grass was wafting through the air.

After a three hour adventure, lots of exercise and picture taking I was ready to go home.  I returned my bike,  bought a few fried bananas and eventually found a taxi home.  It was a wonderful afternoon, great to get some fresh air and explore a new part of Thailand.  I got to see some beautiful flowers, banana trees, a HUGE water monitor lizard (soooo cool!!!... and yes, I had to look up what kind of reptile this was... didn't even know they existed!) and soak up some Thailand sun.  It was fun to be a little adventurous and independent.  It's still funny to think of myself getting taxi's around Thailand, exploring parks, and riding bikes with the locals on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  Who would have guessed?