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Published: January 5th 2006
Bangkok Skyline
The view from our hotel room.Well, it's been a whirlwind in Bangkok. We arrived to the 30 degree weather on January 2nd. Although the weather was hot, it wasn't overly humid, so it was fine for us northerners. Once again, our luggage followed us safely and efficiently and we were met by our private tour guide and driver at the airport. Our hotel - the Amari Atrium - was beautiful. By the time we were settled, we decided to dine in the hotel as the area around the hotel looked (at first glance) a little rough.
The next morning, we met our private tour guide, Pat and our driver (we never did get his name). Pat took us on a tour of several of the main Buddhist temples in Bangkok. Although there are about 400 temples in Bangkok alone, we only visited three this day. First of all, we saw the Golden Buddha - a huge 5 metre tall image of Buddha made of 5 tons of solid gold. It is the largest golden Buddha in the world and it was beautiful. Many people make offerings to smaller Buddhas nearby where they press gold leaf against the image, or place coins in his folded hands.
There is a really interesting story about this Buddha image - it was originally in another location and was encased in cement with the same image on the outside of the cement. When the Buddha was moved to its current location, it was dropped and the cement broke off. At the time, it wasn't known that there was a golden image inside! What a surprise those workers were in for!
After the golden Buddha came the Reclining Buddha - an immense golden Buddha that is lying down. It is 15 metres high and 46 metres long. We walked all around the image and saw the mother-of-pearl inlays on the soles of the Buddha's feet. When you come around the far side, you can make a donation to the temple and receive ~100 coins to place in the round metal pails all the way up the side. There is one pail for each monk that lives in the temple. The sound that is made with all the visitors leaving these donations is very pretty.
The temples themselves are maintained very well and are all decorated in coloured glass. Many ornaments around the temples are gold leaf. The lands surrounding
all of the temples are very beautiful too - they can’t be described - pictures will have to do. All temples are built in 4 stages. The first is the temple itself for the Buddha image where people come to pray. The second stage is the development of the dwellings for the monks who maintain the temple. Third comes a school where the local children are educated and finally, a crematorium is built for the final cremation ceremony. Monks do not cook for themselves - they go out into the community between 8am and 10am for alms - donations of either cash or food from the people in the community. All donations are brought back to the temple and shared equally among all monks living there.
The final temple for the day was at the Royal Palace. Inside the royal palace grounds is the temple of the Emerald Buddha (which is really made of Jade). This Buddha image is only 66cm tall and is perched atop a gold pyramid where each level represents the different level of the heavens. The Buddha image was dressed in its winter coat - his costume is changed three times a year by the
Reclining Buddha
The view from his feet... it's hard to see the 40 metres down to his head! king (who is much revered in Thailand).
After the temple tours, Pat took us to a jewellery manufacturer where we saw the various stages of cutting the rubies and sapphires that are mined in Thailand, as well as the setting of the stones into various settings.
And that was just the morning! We had the afternoon to ourselves and decided to head “downtown” to Siam square to check out the hustle and bustle of downtown Bangkok. Shopping malls were quite busy - Thailand takes a 4-day holiday for new year’s, so many people were out shopping. Pat mentioned that the traffic was very light because of the holiday - many people head out of the city for the long weekend.
In the evening, we were once again picked up by Pat and our driver and were escorted to a traditional Thai dinner and dance show. Surprisingly, the meal was quite mild (but what else can you expect in a place that is serving hundreds of tourists!). There were 6 different items to try along with rice and a coconut milk-based soup. The dancing was generally slow and rhythmic - accompanied by a live “band” who played a
Tom Giving Alms
Our small donation to the monks. variety of wooden xylophone-type instruments and drums. At the restaurant, we were seated with an older couple we were on our day tour with in Hong Kong - they were from Kingston! Once the meal and entertainment were over, we were beat!
The next morning, we were picked up at 6:15 (ouch!) for our full day tour out into the countryside of Thailand. This was a small group tour - 3 couples - including the couple from Kingston and a couple from England. Morning traffic in Bangkok is something else! There are so many modes of transportation here and they all manage to weave in and out of one another fairly well, albeit very slowly at times. We were most amazed at the family motorcycles we saw - four people on one bike including young children and babies (with no helmets!) We saw lots of children being driven to school on motorbikes and you can even catch a motorbike taxi as well! There are 3-wheeled Tuk-Tuk taxis which look very scary, but are used by locals a lot. We didn’t actually see the water busses until the end of the day - but they were packed with locals heading
Headstones
If you have lots of money, you can have one of these erected in the Royal Palace and have your ashes stored here for all to see. home from work at the end of the day.
Our first stop on our day tour was at a coconut processing farm (about 45 minutes outside of Bangkok). They use all parts of the plant - coconuts themselves are used for firewood as well as the fruit and oils and the sap from the flower is boiled down to make sugar (and it’s good… we have a good supply in our luggage now). Next we stopped to load into long tail boats (named for the long prop between the motor and the propeller - 2 meters long!) for the trip through many canals into the floating market. We got an incredible view of real Thai life - small homes located right along the canals. Homes were generally made of wood, but some were concrete or even brick. There was quite the variety of economic levels apparent in the housing alone.
It was about a 20 minute boat ride into the market area where it was packed both with long tail motor boats and floating canoe-type boats which people were using to tour around the market. There were two main market buildings, but also boats along the edge of
Cool guy holding up the temple
Lots of detail in all of the decorations around the Royal Palace. the canals were loaded up with various wares. Some people were cooking coconut pancakes and selling them from their boats. Spices were big as were regional fruits. I purchased a Thai silk dress and a wooden hat (it looks funny on, but will look very nice on our wall at home if it can survive the year).
After an hour at the market, we loaded back into our minivan and headed out to a Thai handicrafts factory. This factory used all teak woods for their carvings and did absolutely incredible intricate carvings! The final products were very beautiful (and very expensive). The talent that we saw was amazing - many people sitting with chisel and hammers just working away at the wood and turning it into beautiful art.
Next came lunch at the Rose Garden - a large park with a small lake in the middle. The lunch was a basic buffet with a good variety to choose from followed by a Thai cultural show including demonstrations of Thai traditions - a monk’s ordination - a wedding ceremony etc. There was a show of Thai boxing (where anything goes!) and more Thai dancing like the previous night. Part
Another Buddha
Another Buddha atop all of that gold! of the pre-show included elephant tours and pictures. Each time an elephant finished touring someone around, they were rewarded with bananas - Tom got to feed a couple of bananas to one of the elephants! We decided to forego the elephant pictures, though where the trainers would have the elephants kneel before you and you could sit on it’s knee! Elephants are still used in the Thai forestry industry.
We finally loaded back into the van for the ride home around 4:00. Given the horrid traffic, it was a good long ride back. Once in the hotel we crashed - and woke up at 9pm! So much for dinner or a night out. We packed up and got ready for our 7:45am transfer to the airport.
Next entry… from Copacabana!
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