Appropriate attire

One of the things that I found incredibly annoying but was helpless against, was the dress code.

You may think Thailand has no dress code, and for the most part, you are correct. Among the absurdly busy streets you will see people dressed in all variety of manner, but one factor seems to remain constant, that there is a sincere lack of clothing. Especially in comparison to Japan! Women wear skimpy or sheer outfits and men will walk around without shirts. The heat is an unforgivable force that unclothes many a people.

Regardless of the great heat monster, whenever you enter a place of sanctuary or of great religious value, you must cloth yourself.

I went to the kings palace and adjoining temple in a shawl and knee length sundress. Upon entering they pulled me aside and informed me I was not allowed to enter until I was properly clothed. I looked at them a bit puzzled and they directed me to a side building at the entrance upon where they will loan you appropriate attire for entrance. For me, it was a shirt. They did not think that my shawl was adequate enough coverage for their temple.
I went inside and the man behind the counter informed me I had to pay a 200Bhat deposit which would be returned to me upon the return of the shirt. Unfortunately they do not break money, so when I said all I have was 1000Bhat they greedily took that from me. The shirt they gave me reminded me of a janitors garb it was a very starched rigid looking fading yellow thing. It buttoned up and was probably 4 sizes too big. I swallowed my pride and any good looks I had going for me that day and exited. My partner upon seeing me went into fits. I am pretty sure there were tears. When we got along the side of the walkway to take a picture with the palace in the background the fits began to reoccur. Needless to say I could not swallow my pride for long enough. I marched back into the building removed and returned the shirt and demanded my money returned. It was no problem. Though I originally had my doubts.
Instead I was carrying about a light rain coat and garbed myself in that for the duration. (I did not do this at first because it was too hot to wear and my skin would stick to it with sweat).
Others who wore too short of skirts or shorts had to borrow traditional style Thai wrap skirts to cover their bare legs. I even saw men dressed as such, but I am pretty sure they were just in it for the kicks.

the grand palace and white jacket

This experience at the Grand Palace was overall an interesting and enlightening experience. However I can point out one other where it was not exactly of the same nature.

As always in Thailand you need to beware of being scammed. Many of the temples in Thailand are not so strict as this temple certainly I can say I entered many other temples without the jacket and not a word was spoken to me (though it may not have been the most respectful thing but man it was hot out). But one temple in particular grates.
Tiger Temple, which I mentioned earlier in the blog, you must travel many hours to get there (3-6 depending on how awesome your driver is), it is a long journey. And once you get there you expect to enter. As well you should! You just paid to get there after all and paid the entrance fee of 600Bhat. But no. Peddlers upon the entrance of the park block your way proclaiming tht this is a temple, a sacred place, and you must clothe yourself properly. Whether they work for the temple or not I have no clue. But they will try to bar your entrance unless you buy from them. Certainly they are within reason, but not so friendly as the clothes lending Grand Palace. They cannot exactly bar your entrance in all accordance with the Buddhist customs which are extremely peaceful, so I am under the impression that they are just trying to leech off unsuspecting tourists who would easily fall prey to them, but likely with the blessing of the temple itself. Which might I point out, there is no real temple there. There is no Buddha you can pray to and leave offerings at. There is no indoor building or physical temple. There aren't even that many monks there; the ones handling the tigers are all either volunteers or well tiger handlers. It is just an open air zoo with no barring of animals behind gates and fences.
And of course these t-shirts that these peddlers try to sell you are no just plain but have to say Tiger Temple all over them so that they can charge the extra dime for authentic location garb.
Personally I did not fall prey to this and read about it on another blog before hand and brought an extra shirt. Which of course they were displeased about and argued about the length of the sleeves saying that theirs were more respectable because the sleeves were longer. Needless to say, they were still trying to scam me; anything with sleeves is acceptable (mine was a normal womens t-shirt and they were selling mens which of course have longer sleeves).

you can see that I am wearing a shirt over a shirt

So beware and bring a spare t-shirt if you don't want to be scammed or unpleasant looking in photos!