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Published: March 27th 2009
Giant Reclining Buddha
He barely fits. the feet are inlaid mother-of-pearlthe distant future, the distant future...it is the year 2551. my trip to thailand occured in the year 2551. Thailand has a different calender. anyway... i limped out of the airport and took a shuttle bus to khaosan road, where all the backpackers hang out. khaosan road started out small but has become a huge gathering place for foreigners on a budget. the austrian girl i had met in kauai gave me some suggestions as she had recently been to thailand. i was dropped off by the shuttle at khaosan but walked to another street soi Ram Buttri which was lively but not as crazy and congested as khaosan. it wrapped around a Wat(Bhuddist temple) strangely enough. i hobbled from hotel to hotel asking about vacancies. when i found a vacant room, i checked the room and bathroom first, then paid for the room and paid the deposit. i took a walk to khaosan and absorbed the lights and sounds and congestion and confusion and atmosphere. alive and vibrant. 5 different languages could be heard at the same time. everyone want the pleasure of selling you something, anything. i was offered massage, food, drink, dance, transportation, entertainment, an assortment of junk,
The Guard and I
see the resemblance. note bandaging on my foot. ´smoke´ and ´sweet chicky boom boom´. instead i ate a crepe and went back to my room. i cleaned the puncture wound on the bottom of my foot, dressed it and went to sleep.
i woke the next morning with ideas of what to do and where to go and how to spend my time swirling about my head. i walked out the front of the hotel. the first thing that i saw was a bowl of muesli with yogurt and fruit on a small table set up on the street. i took a couple steps past, then thought again. i asked the young lady eating the lovely breakfast where she got it. she pointed out the vendor. i purchased a big bowl of muesli, fruit, and yogurt for 20 baht($.65). i asked if the seat was taken across from the girl. she invited me to sit with her. i find that Helen is engaged and on a long tour of southeast asia. when she finished her breakfast she asked if i wanted to join her to visit the royal palace. a bit surprised, i asked when. she said she would be ready in 10 minutes. i said ´ok´.
Statues and Chedis
Outside the building with the reclining Buddha. i finished my breakfast and limped to my room. i came back down and we were off. from this chance meeting, i ended up travelling on and off with helen for a couple weeks. but first we took a riverboat($.40) down the river to the royal palace. we were closer to the entrance of Wat Po, which is right next to the grand palace, so that is where we went first. Wats are always clean and well kept. old wats that have been abandoned obviously arent in the best shape but are always well kept. Wat Po is the oldest wat in bangkok but it has had constant attention. wats are ornate and colorful such a treat for the eyes. Wat po is actually older than the city of bangkok. it has be enlarged a couple times and was made a center of learning by Rama III. inside wat po is a giant reclining buddha. the building is barely large enough to house it. you must always take your shoes off before entering a buddhist temple( thai homes and many small shops as well) so i stood out with all of the bandaging to keep the wound clean and uninfected.
pilgrims and tourists enter near the elbow and face and look down the length of his body and can see his toes over 150ft away. we walked to his feet to find the soles inlaid with mother of pearl forming images of the 108 signs of a true buddha. the exit is near the back of his head. There are 95 chedis(ornate structures that come to a point at the top) in wat po. two large chedi hold the remains of Rama II and RamaIII. another building holds ancient buddhist scripture written on palm leaf. after exploring the ornate artistry of statues and chedis for a while, we headed to the grand palace. an official looking man at the gate told us that it was closed for an official event but would be open in an hour. he suggested we go to see the world´s tallest standing buddha just down the street and come back. he called a tuk tuk and told us that it would only be 40baht roundtrip. this was cheap so we agreed. we visited wat intharawihan to see the buddha that stood about 109 ft(32m) tall. there was an old lady selling cages of birds, the
Giant Standing Buddha
over 100 ft tall, 30 ft wide. the last line of the inscription in the stone at the base reads, ´(the statue) who could bless everyone all success, has miraculous power, especially if they vow that they will present a head of a fish of the mackerel kind, a boiled egg, and a lei of flowers.´ idea being that you could stand at the huge buddha´s feet and release the birds. my first thought was that either they are trained to fly back to the cages or the practice was cruel so we declined. we left after less than half an hour of arriving. helen asked the tuk tuk driver to stop at a travel agency along the way. she asked some questions. i told the agent i was thinking of going to the island of ko pha gnan as my austrian friend had suggested. he told me that it would be raining and muddy for weeks there. so this freed up alot of my future plans. we got back in the tuk tuk and noticed that we were riding for quite some time. we asked the driver where we were going. he told us that he needed to stop at a shop for a moment on the way. we told him no absolutely not. no shops. no shops. he argued. helen said ´then stop right here and we will pay what we agreed´ so he stopped and we paid him. when a driver says anything about a shop, it is a trap. run away. the
Guards
guarding an entrance in the grand palace driver gets paid and you get forced into a very uncomfortable situation and the only way out is to buy something you dont want. we asked another tuk tuk to take us back to the grand palace, no shops. the entrance fee was 300baht(little more than $8). the grand palace has a very strict dress policy. no bare arms or bare legs. helen wore pants and long sleeves. i had shorts on though so i had to borrow pants from the palace office to get in. i had to pay a 300baht deposit and i got some lightweight, comfortable gray pants so i was decent. after passing the decency guards, who were noticibly more lax with thai´s and people that looked thai, we passed the lawn and reached the ticket office. then we passed a few more decency guards and handed in our tickets. visitors first enter Wat Phra Kaew temple of the emerald buddha. this is the only Wat without any attending monks, which i thought was the requirement for being a wat but... anyway inside was crowded. everything was glittering and gold and colorful and ornate. there were statues and ornate chedis. There were always two statues guarding
Emerald Buddha Building
shiny gold and ornate. note scale model of angkor wat in the bottom left. each entrance. the one on the left is good and the one on the right is evil. we stopped at an incredible scaled down replica of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. seeing the model convinced me that it would definitely be in my future. we stopped at a peaceful zen garden in the center of the congestion and busy architecture. one ritual for the children is to buy gold foil and spread it on a small statue. there were also lotuses for sale for offerings as well as incense. again utmost respect is expected here so before entering the building housing the worldfamous emerald buddha, shoes are to be removed. inside you can stand or kneel or sit on the carpet as long as your feet(considered dirty on a sandal-wearing population) are not pointing in the direction of the buddha. no photos are allowed inside. it is sparkling and shiny and ornate but the buddha is hard to see. it is high above the heads of visitors and may be large in terms of being carved from a single piece of jade, but from the back of the room it is hard to see. the statue is dressed, only by the
Grand Palace
statue immitation at Helen´s urging. note fashionable grey rental pants over my shorts. king, 3 times a year to go with the perceptable seasons. painted on the walls around the wat are scenes from the thai version of a hindu mythology involving armies of monkeys. artists were touching up these massive, story-telling battle scenes. after the wat visitors enter the palace part of the complex. of course half of it is strictly off-limits as it houses one fo the king´s homes, government seats, the mint,... on our way to the exit we ran into a couple who had paid to get in but could not. the girl had gotten past the first set of descency guards with short sleeves because she had indian heritage and maybe looked a little thai. her boyfriend who was a big fella but not huge by western standards couldnt fit in any of the rentable pants so was allowed by to buy a ticket but both were being turned away at the entrance. we ate lunch(25baht-$.80?) outside the palace on the street. then we made our way to the the golden mount. the golden mount is part of Wat Saket and is so named because it has a shiny golden chedi at the peak at about 70m. some
Gold Foil Buddha
children buy gold foil and dress the buddhas of the the rest of the hill has been painted a golden color. there is apparently a buddha tooth here. it is a little hike to the top with bells all along to be rung for good luck. entrance is only 10baht($.25). the top has a great view of the city below. we made our way to the river and crossed. we walked to Wat Arun for sunset. we didnt go inside because it was closing soon after we got there and there was enough to see from the outside. it was beautiful even from outside the gates. Helen and i took a river boat back to the dock close to our hotels and met later for a sit down dinner near Khaosan for 90baht($2.50?). we discussed our future travel plans. the beach and island i wanted to go to was being rained out for weeks to come and the beach she was heading to was all the way in the south nearer to malaysia than to bangkok.
the next morning helen went on a bike tour of chinatown. i had breakfast and hired a tuk tuk to the train station. my plan was to go to ayutthaya the
Government Buildings
on the grand palace property ancient thai capital. the two hour train ride cost me 17baht($.45) the city is surrounded by a moat that was built for defence and for irrigation. it cost 4baht(a little more than a penny) to cross into the city by boat. i wandered around until i found a few guesthouses and looked at a few rooms. i settled for a nice peaceful place next to a bike rental shop for 250baht/night. after i settled in my room with a fan and two beds, i rented a bike for 35baht($1) for the day. i rode around stopping at the ruins of several Wats. the color and finish had worn away leaving the brick structure underneath on many of the ruins. i stopped at a newer large building housing a golden buddha. outside there was a large open air flea market of some sort. it covered at least an acre. it was mostly food. i walked through and forgive my western ignorance but i didnt recognize one product being sold. there was one thing that looked like deep fried fish skeleton but i wasnt sure. i did buy a liter of water(8baht). i stopped at a fenced-in area where you could pay
Monk at Wat Arun
monks can be tourists too for a wat tour on elephant back. it just seemed sad to me. the elephants were all standing together gnawing on wood or chewing hay with the drivers lounging on their backs chit-chatting. i biked out of town a bit and saw one of my favorite wats, but i couldnt spend much time there as the sun was dropping. i almost ran over a snake on the still-warm road. i got back just in time to return my bike and sign up for the nighttour. a tuk tuk picked me up and took me to an elephant training area to await the start of the tour. the fence was basicly tree trunks buried close together so no elephant could fit through. the tuk tuk driver and his wife headed the tour. the other tourists consisted of a german couple i sat with on the train to Ayutthaya and a pakistani man who was also staying in my guesthouse. small world. we were driven around to all of the wats which were lit up at night. it was different from seeing them in the day. it was worth it. we were dropped off at our guesthouses afterwards. the pakistani man and
Thanon Khao San
it is a busy, bustling backpacker haven i agreed to have dinner together. we ate at a place with a blues band playing ouside. it was a good meal and pleasant conversation and good atmosphere. he payed for my meal i never got a chance to offer any kindness in return. i decided the next morning that i had seen everything i wanted to see in the ancient capital. i took the train back to bangkok and waited at the trainstation for helen. she had extended an invitation to travel with her to the south and if i was so inclined, i was to meet her at this train station at a certain time. i ate a spinach and bean pastry and bought 2 more books, bringing my book total to 7. books took up more space than my clothes and doubled the weight of my single small backpack. i met helen and we headed to our train.
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Nathan
non-member comment
Josh, Nice posting. Glad you are experiencing the world! Have fun!