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Published: March 26th 2008
After we went off to bed last night, we tossed and turned until 2 am, at which point we were both awake. We gave in and each took half an Ambien - and both slept like rocks until 7:15. Then we were rested and ready to go!
Our hotel has an extravagant buffet breakfast - everything you could ask for - excellent coffee, huge variety of tropical fruits, croissants and rolls and jam and butter, scrambled eggs and bacon and sausage, dim sum, Cocoa Puffs(!) and other cereal, juice, yogurt, etc. We left the table full and well-caffeinated.
At 9:00 we headed out for our khlong tour - 2 ½ hours on a longtail boat cruising the river a bit and then the small canals of Bangkok. (Bangkok is sometimes called “the Venice of the East.”) We saw houses on stilts in the water, temple after temple around every corner, laundry hanging out to dry (all on hangers!), dogs and cats, kids swimming, monks in their saffron robes, lush green vegetation and flowers blooming. Early on, a lady in a market boat selling souvenirs pulled alongside us and did her best to sell us straw hats, keychains, Buddha carvings, and other assorted knickknacks. We politely declined, over and over again, but eventually relented to her offer to buy a cold Coca Cola, at which point she saw our weakness and talked us into buying our boat driver a beer “for later.” She was so insistent to at that point that I shrugged and bought the guy a beer. What the heck!
The weather was hot and sunny, but there was a breeze as we motored along. We made stops at the Royal Barges museum, where we saw huge long narrow boats with gilded dragon detailing and seats for 50+ rowers. These are still used for Royal processions on the river on special occasions, and they are quite impressive. We also stopped at Wat Arun, a Khmer-style temple decorated entirely in mosaics made of fragments of Chinese porcelain.
By 11:30 we were dropped off at the pier closest to Chinatown and found our way to the China Princess hotel, which was the meeting point for our bike tour. We had some time to kill and wandered around the neighborhood, which seemed similar to Chinatown in New York - bustling, crowded, chock full of shopfronts and vendors selling everything from fruits and vegetables, fabric, sunglasses, padlocks, power tools, handbags, fake Rolex watches, and innumerable items we couldn’t begin to identify. There were several shops selling military-style items: knives and flak jackets and holsters and what (I think!) were paintball guns. We never went more than a few minutes without seeing a photo of the king, or a clock with the king’s picture on it, or polo shirts with the Royal emblem on the chest pocket. (These are very popular and are usually yellow, which is apparently symbolic of Monday, which is the day on which the king was born 80 years ago. Have I mentioned how much they love their king???) And there were food stalls every ten feet, selling more items we couldn’t begin to identify: grilled meats and innards on sticks, cut fruit, pots of substances of unknown origin, and deep-fried…things. Steve would have been in heaven, but we were far too hot and not quite adventurous enough (yet) to eat street food, so we looked and marveled but did not buy.
We had a cold drink and some ice cream in the hotel lobby and eventually joined up with our biking group - a young Belgian couple on Day 2 of their four-month trip around the world, and a retired Dutch couple on their last day of a three-month trip all over Asia. English was our common language, and they proved to be a lively and pleasant group. Our guides, “Bowling” (more about him later) and “Miss Lin”, gave us a briefing about what to expect, which consisted of the following: Ride in a single line, give us 5 minutes notice if you need a bathroom, and have fun! We were issued our 1-speed, seen-better-days bikes and headed out into the craziest traffic - in fact, we hadn’t been able to cross the street on foot without waiting and shadowing someone who looked like they knew what they were doing. Besides the never-ending stream of busses, taxis, cars, trucks, tuktuks and motorcycles, the task was made more challenging by the fact that they drive on the left here, so as we joined the traffic on our bikes we really had to adjust to the traffic flow in a way that felt completely foreign - which it was!
We left the busy streets behind rather quickly, but the next five hours and 20 kilometers were spent in life-size game of Labyrinth - remember that game that consists of a wooden maze on a board that rotates on two axes, and you turn the knobs back and forth to move a marble from one end to the other without letting it fall down a hole? The narrow lanes and alleys and paths we traveled actually criss-crossed some of the areas we rode through on our boat tour this morning, and at some points we riding on four-foot-wide cement paths that dropped off to water on both sides with no railings, and at times, people on motorcycles were coming at us in the opposite direction! At other times, we were in narrow alleys enclosed by corrugated iron walls, and sometimes it was more open and we wove in and out of small streets with manageable traffic.
We rode past shops and markets, countless food stalls, dogs sleeping plastered to the concrete in the shade, chickens scratching in the weeds and rubble, children kicking balls and riding bikes, and homes that opened onto the alleys where we could see people sewing and ironing and watching TV in their kitchens. We saw people in their living rooms, just a few feet from us, lying on their tile floors seeking their own bit of respite from the heat. There were men sleeping in hammocks strung between any two objects available, four-foot long monitor lizards on the banks of the canals, and more food cooking everywhere, not to mention more temples every time we turned another corner.
The sights and sounds were amazing, but the smells were even more astounding and impossible to describe. Garlic, spices, herbs, vegetation, flowers, grilling meat, fruit, and incense came at us one after another, all wonderful and constantly changing. If only there was a way to capture it all and experience it again and again, or to bring it all home for you to enjoy!
I took photos along the way, but I focused more on experiencing the day rather than photographing it. I’ll do my best to post photos soon, but be warned that they will not do justice to the sights we saw.
Besides the beautiful barrage of aromas, we were most struck by the friendliness of the Thai people. Thailand isn’t called the “Land of Smiles” for nothing: everywhere we rode, people smiled and waved and called “Hello” or “
Sawatdee ka!” Children were especially enthusiastic, but even adults were overwhelming friendly and welcoming and smiling. Children giggled and waved and ran to hold out their hands for us to give them five as we rode by. Women carrying babies and toddlers held their children’s arms and made them wave at us. Even the people we almost ran over or collided with on their motorcycles smiled forgivingly and bowed their heads in greeting. It was really quite amazing.
The heat was also quite amazing. Someone said it was 37 degrees Celsius today - that would 98 degrees Fahrenheit, and the humidity might have been the same. I was amazed at how well we held up - though mom did look a bit close to heatstroke at one point! We stopped several times to have cold drinks and fruit and sit in the shade, and the guides stopped and bought us all cool damp scented washcloths at one point, and while we were moving, the breeze helped, but we drank and drank and drank and never had to stop to use a bathroom. The sweat just poured off us, and as much as we were enjoying ourselves, we were relieved when the riding came to an end and we loaded the bikes on a longtail boat to ride most of the way back on the water. Mom was amazing - despite almost falling off the path and into the water at one sharp turn, and catching her handlebars on a vendor’s cart in the market, she never hesitated to keep going! She impressed the young folks in the group enormously, and impressed me as well. I promised not to work her so hard any more on this trip!
About our guide: Bowling is a young man in his early twenties with good English (though we find the Asian accent to be a challenge for us to understand at times) and a big smile. At one of our rest stops, I asked about his name and whether it was a common Thai name. He told us that it wasn’t, and in fact he had been named by his father, who loved to go bowling. (Yes, the kind of bowling where you roll the ball down a lane to knock down pins!) At first, I didn’t believe him, but it seems to be true! And then, of course, I couldn’t resist asking if he has brother or sisters. Yes, he said, he has one sister. And her name is…? “Shampoo” because his father was a shampoo salesman and his mother a hairdresser. This information caused much amusement for all of us, which he seemed to enjoy as much as we did.
We also talked about the Thai tradition where all young men become monks for at least a short while sometime after they turn 20. He had just finished his month as a monk a few weeks ago - and in fact, his hair and eyebrows were just growing back. It was very interesting to hear about. And now the word “Bowling” will always have another meaning for me. For those of you who know about our family’s Easter tradition of “Bowling for Jesus,” I think we may now have to call it “Bowling for Buddha.”
Well, I imagine you’ve heard more than enough by now about our first full day on the ground. To wrap it all up, we figured out how to take a water ferry back to our own hotel, and then found some excellent Thai take-out food to bring to our room. (For those who are wondering what we ate - yes, that would be Steve - we had deep-fried prawn cakes, asparagus and shrimp in a light sweet sauce, and spicy sautéed morning glory, all washed down with a couple of cold Singha beers, all of which came to about $12.)
Please forgive all spelling, punctuation, and grammar gaffes I have made - I am far too relaxed to proofread as compulsively as usual. I will add photos another time, though I can’t guarantee when! And to all of you who are shouldering some of my responsibilities at home and at work, I thank you for making this possible.
I will finish this off with one of my favorite quotes about travel, from Bill Bryson:
Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you only have the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
If that doesn’t sum up this experience so far, I don’t know what does.
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moldvictim
non-member comment
please continue your gastronomic journal
Jessica, your diary is delightful. Please continue to write details about your meals and foods/fruits/veggies seen in markets! I can't imagine biking in Bangkok! Walking would be terrifying enough, with all the distractions and traffic violators. Good going, Meda. Hah! I had guessed your 3-country destination, a journey that enlivens my interest because my sister went to all 3 nations a year ago with group of architecture students.