I can’t believe we’ve only been travelling for one week. It feels like ages ago I was celebrating the new year and packing up my life into a 65 liter sack. I’ll be honest, we’re both ready to escape Bangkok in search of the real Thailand we have only read and dreamed about. Don’t get me wrong - Bangkok has a lot to offer for everyone but the biggest draw seems to be shopping and partying. There are some amazing sights to see but Bangkok has a relatively short history compared to the rest of Thailand, having only served as the nation’s capital since the late 18th century. Here’s the rundown of what we’ve seen so far and some thoughts on culture and experiences we’ve had here.
Wat Pho was freaking awesome. It’s Bangkok’s biggest wat and it houses the giant golden reclining Buddha. Comprised of a complex of zen gardens and temples, it is Bangkok’s largest wat. Inside the house of the reclining Buddha, the walls depict monastery life and the ceilings are red with repeating gold patterns. We seated ourselves in a temple within the complex to relax and reflect on our journey thus far. It was rejuvinating. After starting to overheat in the early afternoon, we decided to check out a nearby national musuem and since it was only a $2 tuk-tuk ride away, we hitched our first, exhilirating, tuk-tuk ride to spend the afternoon in a free air-conditioned exhibit. For the price, would highly recommend it and I am really beginning to appreciate my ability to speak English since all the displays were written in either Thai or English.
The Grand Palace was my favorite sight in Bangkok hands down. It started out confusingly enough - my shorts were a bit too short for their taste so I had to put down a $7 deposit to rent a pair of theirs (this almost deterred me from wanting to see the place but I’m glad we stuck it out). As we began walking along a long wide path full of tourists seeking the ticket booth, a nice looking man asked us if we needed a guided tour. At first my scam reflexes started firing but it seemed that there were many of these guides around and he had a legitimate badge. Why not, we agreed thinking that his salary was paid for by the entrance fees. He was fantastic. Guided us at our pace, answered my incessant questions patiently and pointed out the best picture opportunities and offered to take many of both of us. I learned more that day about Buddism and Thailand than from anywhere else. At the end he dropped us off at the palace cafe and we gave him a tip, so we thought. Turns out when he told us the price of the tickets at the beginning of the tour, that was his price on top of the admission price of the National Palace grounds. Embarassed, we fumbled for the right amount of baht and unfortunately had to wait while he made change for us at the cashier. We thanked him again and both agreed that the $17 we paid him was well worth it. We finished the tour with strolls through a few museums, our favorite of which was the Textile museum, surprisingly enough. Here we learned how Thai silk is harvested from silk worms, spun into thicker fibers, dyed and woven into textiles. The museum itself was an embodiment of the queen’s SUPPORT foundation which preserves traditional Thai silk arts by giving grants to women skilled in these art forms. I think we both left with a new respect for Thailand’s royal family and new understanding of the function of a king and queen.
The night market warranted a total of 3 trips and one particular time we had the intent to stay for the best free exhibit Bangkok has to offer: people watching. From ultra cosmopolitan (think Hunger Games Capital) fashion, to convincing she males, to flamboyant gay men and hoards of drunk farang (Thai slang for white tourist), there was certainly no shortage of entertainment or cheap beer. Later in the week, we ate at a Spanish tapas restaurant across the street where we experienced our first Bangkok blackout. The entire alley was out of power and restored within 20 minutes (thank Buddha!). With that many neon signs and outrageous sound systems coupled with the tangled shabble that is Bangkok’s power grid, I’m surprised that didn’t happen to us more than once.
The Jim Thompson (of the Jim Thompson Silk Company) house was also a neat little hidden jem of Bangkok. He was an American business man who fell in love with Thailand and helped revive a dying silk industry there. His house was constructed of solid teak and filled with beautiful gardens, stunning Buddhist statues and fine china. Fun facts about Jim Thompson: he kept his Christian faith throughout his life though he was fond of the calming nature of the face of Buddha, which is why he accumulated such a vast collection of them. Also, he dissappeared suddenly in 1967 in Malaysia while hiking in the Cameron highlands. During this tour, we learned the purpose of spirit houses which are tiny model houses meant to house spirits of family members or other important souls. A Thai Buddhist tradition involves offerings of food, drink and flowers to the spirits by placing items around the model home. While at first scoffing at the practice, I have come to appreciate the idea behind the soul not simply going to heaven or hell (which some Buddhists do believe in) and the idea of having a place that you are wanted and even revered in the afterlife seems strangely comforting. Though, I still think that many of these spirit houses are subject to serious ant problems.
Not necessarily an attraction of Bangkok but a spectacle non the less, Bangkok’s paragon mall complex is an absurd assault on the visual and audio senses. It is six stories tall, houses a huge grocery market, international food court, hundreds of chic brand name shops, a convention center and a movie theater complex complete with an Imax screen and even a VIP, members only cinema club on the top floor. Apparently, it claims to be the the largest mall in SE Asia. We ate at a Japonese fast food resturant called Mos Burger. I ordered the traditional pork in a rice bun. That’s right. Pork squished between two compressed sticky rice cakes instead of a bread bun. It was tasty but fell apart very easily and for the $2 price tag it was quite small. Later, we bought tickets for The Hobbit in IMAX 3D, which was very cool. In this theater (and maybe all in Thailand) you buy a specific seat in the theater instead of a free for all. Makes a lot of sense AMC...
Chinatown was another interestingly fun and strange attraction in Bangkok. Fun facts about chinatown: The property prices about the highest in Bangkok (though the buildings are all very old) and it houses a 24 hour flower market. It was an olfactory sensory overload for sure, but it was fasicinating to see all the varieties of flowers as well as the speed and volume which the they were traded. We walked a whole lot around seemingly endless shops and fresh produce markets and were releived when we reached the familiar wretched smells of dry spiced fish (some of which I know were caught in the nasty river) of the pier next to Wat Pho where we caught the public ferry back to our stop.
The Dusit Park zoo was another notable sight, though if you have been to any zoo in the United States, you aren’t missing much, especially because we went in the morning when many of the animals were sleeping or seemingly bored. There were a few exhibits that made the $3 entry fee worthwhile though: bird island housed many of Thailand and SE Asia’s hard billed bird species including huge tucans and a variety of colorful parrots. They housed a few animals that I have not seen in American zoos that are endemic to either Thailand or SE Asia. Also, our first KFC experience was in the zoo. Nothing too different to report here except the ketchup was rather spicy.
Khao San Road in Bangkok’s oldes’t neighborhood, Rattanakosin, is certainly high on the list for free entertainment. A backpacker mecca, it draws young and old travellers to budget beer and hostel rooms, rip off suit tailors and blocks upon blocks of cheap goods (including ID, Passport and diploma counterfieters). The many 10 minute walks we have done from our hostel have endowed us with a $10 swimsuit, a $4 harmonica, a $5 tank top and the bragging rights of eating a cooked scorpion (that one is just for me). While not quite as much of a freakshow as the night market crowd, Khao San Road is a circus of its own kind.
We sure enjoyed the hospitality that the Marriott showed us but there is something about being in the blue collar part of town that makes me feel a bit more like I am really in the city as opposed to merely spectating it. Maybe its just my foggy tourist goggles. Walking around town we have spotted prayer groups and english classes taking over entire restaurants. We have met a burmese street food vendor, a friendly Nepalese suit sellar (who has inspired me somewhat to expand our search of countries we plan on visiting especially now that I know how cheap we can really stay in this part of the world) and a talkative Laotian tuk-tuk driver. We have made friends with a Carribean born surfer who has lived in Santa Cruz, Mexico, France and speaks the languages from each country fluently. We have not gotten sick from the food or water and we have become more spontaneously decisive (that last one, Megan and I both agree we need some work on).
Tomorrow, we leave Bangkok on a 2 hour train ride, heading north to the city of Ayutthaya to see the famous floating weekend floating marketplace and ruins of ancient cities past (Ayutthaya was the capitol of the once powerful Ayutthaya empire before being burned to the ground by Burmese invaders in the late 18th century). We have been blessed with such good weather, company and stunning attractions so far in the trip and I am so excited for the next leg.
Wat Pho was freaking awesome. It’s Bangkok’s biggest wat and it houses the giant golden reclining Buddha. Comprised of a complex of zen gardens and temples, it is Bangkok’s largest wat. Inside the house of the reclining Buddha, the walls depict monastery life and the ceilings are red with repeating gold patterns. We seated ourselves in a temple within the complex to relax and reflect on our journey thus far. It was rejuvinating. After starting to overheat in the early afternoon, we decided to check out a nearby national musuem and since it was only a $2 tuk-tuk ride away, we hitched our first, exhilirating, tuk-tuk ride to spend the afternoon in a free air-conditioned exhibit. For the price, would highly recommend it and I am really beginning to appreciate my ability to speak English since all the displays were written in either Thai or English.
The Grand Palace was my favorite sight in Bangkok hands down. It started out confusingly enough - my shorts were a bit too short for their taste so I had to put down a $7 deposit to rent a pair of theirs (this almost deterred me from wanting to see the place but I’m glad we stuck it out). As we began walking along a long wide path full of tourists seeking the ticket booth, a nice looking man asked us if we needed a guided tour. At first my scam reflexes started firing but it seemed that there were many of these guides around and he had a legitimate badge. Why not, we agreed thinking that his salary was paid for by the entrance fees. He was fantastic. Guided us at our pace, answered my incessant questions patiently and pointed out the best picture opportunities and offered to take many of both of us. I learned more that day about Buddism and Thailand than from anywhere else. At the end he dropped us off at the palace cafe and we gave him a tip, so we thought. Turns out when he told us the price of the tickets at the beginning of the tour, that was his price on top of the admission price of the National Palace grounds. Embarassed, we fumbled for the right amount of baht and unfortunately had to wait while he made change for us at the cashier. We thanked him again and both agreed that the $17 we paid him was well worth it. We finished the tour with strolls through a few museums, our favorite of which was the Textile museum, surprisingly enough. Here we learned how Thai silk is harvested from silk worms, spun into thicker fibers, dyed and woven into textiles. The museum itself was an embodiment of the queen’s SUPPORT foundation which preserves traditional Thai silk arts by giving grants to women skilled in these art forms. I think we both left with a new respect for Thailand’s royal family and new understanding of the function of a king and queen.
The night market warranted a total of 3 trips and one particular time we had the intent to stay for the best free exhibit Bangkok has to offer: people watching. From ultra cosmopolitan (think Hunger Games Capital) fashion, to convincing she males, to flamboyant gay men and hoards of drunk farang (Thai slang for white tourist), there was certainly no shortage of entertainment or cheap beer. Later in the week, we ate at a Spanish tapas restaurant across the street where we experienced our first Bangkok blackout. The entire alley was out of power and restored within 20 minutes (thank Buddha!). With that many neon signs and outrageous sound systems coupled with the tangled shabble that is Bangkok’s power grid, I’m surprised that didn’t happen to us more than once.
The Jim Thompson (of the Jim Thompson Silk Company) house was also a neat little hidden jem of Bangkok. He was an American business man who fell in love with Thailand and helped revive a dying silk industry there. His house was constructed of solid teak and filled with beautiful gardens, stunning Buddhist statues and fine china. Fun facts about Jim Thompson: he kept his Christian faith throughout his life though he was fond of the calming nature of the face of Buddha, which is why he accumulated such a vast collection of them. Also, he dissappeared suddenly in 1967 in Malaysia while hiking in the Cameron highlands. During this tour, we learned the purpose of spirit houses which are tiny model houses meant to house spirits of family members or other important souls. A Thai Buddhist tradition involves offerings of food, drink and flowers to the spirits by placing items around the model home. While at first scoffing at the practice, I have come to appreciate the idea behind the soul not simply going to heaven or hell (which some Buddhists do believe in) and the idea of having a place that you are wanted and even revered in the afterlife seems strangely comforting. Though, I still think that many of these spirit houses are subject to serious ant problems.
Not necessarily an attraction of Bangkok but a spectacle non the less, Bangkok’s paragon mall complex is an absurd assault on the visual and audio senses. It is six stories tall, houses a huge grocery market, international food court, hundreds of chic brand name shops, a convention center and a movie theater complex complete with an Imax screen and even a VIP, members only cinema club on the top floor. Apparently, it claims to be the the largest mall in SE Asia. We ate at a Japonese fast food resturant called Mos Burger. I ordered the traditional pork in a rice bun. That’s right. Pork squished between two compressed sticky rice cakes instead of a bread bun. It was tasty but fell apart very easily and for the $2 price tag it was quite small. Later, we bought tickets for The Hobbit in IMAX 3D, which was very cool. In this theater (and maybe all in Thailand) you buy a specific seat in the theater instead of a free for all. Makes a lot of sense AMC...
Chinatown was another interestingly fun and strange attraction in Bangkok. Fun facts about chinatown: The property prices about the highest in Bangkok (though the buildings are all very old) and it houses a 24 hour flower market. It was an olfactory sensory overload for sure, but it was fasicinating to see all the varieties of flowers as well as the speed and volume which the they were traded. We walked a whole lot around seemingly endless shops and fresh produce markets and were releived when we reached the familiar wretched smells of dry spiced fish (some of which I know were caught in the nasty river) of the pier next to Wat Pho where we caught the public ferry back to our stop.
The Dusit Park zoo was another notable sight, though if you have been to any zoo in the United States, you aren’t missing much, especially because we went in the morning when many of the animals were sleeping or seemingly bored. There were a few exhibits that made the $3 entry fee worthwhile though: bird island housed many of Thailand and SE Asia’s hard billed bird species including huge tucans and a variety of colorful parrots. They housed a few animals that I have not seen in American zoos that are endemic to either Thailand or SE Asia. Also, our first KFC experience was in the zoo. Nothing too different to report here except the ketchup was rather spicy.
Khao San Road in Bangkok’s oldes’t neighborhood, Rattanakosin, is certainly high on the list for free entertainment. A backpacker mecca, it draws young and old travellers to budget beer and hostel rooms, rip off suit tailors and blocks upon blocks of cheap goods (including ID, Passport and diploma counterfieters). The many 10 minute walks we have done from our hostel have endowed us with a $10 swimsuit, a $4 harmonica, a $5 tank top and the bragging rights of eating a cooked scorpion (that one is just for me). While not quite as much of a freakshow as the night market crowd, Khao San Road is a circus of its own kind.
We sure enjoyed the hospitality that the Marriott showed us but there is something about being in the blue collar part of town that makes me feel a bit more like I am really in the city as opposed to merely spectating it. Maybe its just my foggy tourist goggles. Walking around town we have spotted prayer groups and english classes taking over entire restaurants. We have met a burmese street food vendor, a friendly Nepalese suit sellar (who has inspired me somewhat to expand our search of countries we plan on visiting especially now that I know how cheap we can really stay in this part of the world) and a talkative Laotian tuk-tuk driver. We have made friends with a Carribean born surfer who has lived in Santa Cruz, Mexico, France and speaks the languages from each country fluently. We have not gotten sick from the food or water and we have become more spontaneously decisive (that last one, Megan and I both agree we need some work on).
Tomorrow, we leave Bangkok on a 2 hour train ride, heading north to the city of Ayutthaya to see the famous floating weekend floating marketplace and ruins of ancient cities past (Ayutthaya was the capitol of the once powerful Ayutthaya empire before being burned to the ground by Burmese invaders in the late 18th century). We have been blessed with such good weather, company and stunning attractions so far in the trip and I am so excited for the next leg.