Advertisement
Published: April 22nd 2010
Drinks and Dinner with Friends
The night before we arrived in Bankok we had drinks and dinner with friends. To Annette's left is Alma, Tom, Carol and Ralph. Unfortunately, Alma and Ralph had to leave the ship not too long after this as Ralph's health had deterioated. After a day at sea, we had a nice dinner last night with some world cruise friends, Carol and Tom Ross and Ralph and Alma Michael from Pennsylvania. Carol and Tom are very good bridge players, formerly from Palo Alto and now in a nice Del Webb golf community in Lincoln, CA. Unfortunately, not long after our dinner, Ralph and Alma had to leave the ship as Ralph’s health was failing.
As Thailand’s main port and largest city, Bangkok has always been more cosmopolitan than other regions of the country. It definitely blends the old and new world. Thousands of Chinese immigrants from the impoverished South China seacoast came to Bangkok seeking work and money during the 19th century until World War II. By the early 20th century, Bangkok was an overwhelmingly Chinese city, their immigrants outnumbering the Thai population. Since WWII, the Chinese immigration has basically stopped. Today, the population has reverted back to primarily Thai. In addition to Thai, the national language, English is widely spoken here, taught in secondary schools and colleges.
Bangkok suffers from many of the urban ills that beset many other large cities. Many rural dwellers have moved into the city seeking employment
View from Our Hotel Balcony
After docking in Laem Chabang, we were coached about 80 miles to Bangkok, where we all checked in to the Shangri-La Hotel for our overnight. This is a view of the Chao Phraya River. The big building across the river is The Peninsula Hotel. and have stressed the city’s housing and public health systems. It has worsened the slums, traffic congestion and pollution. As you will see in some of the photos, there will be a very expensive condo building with an absolutely deplorable shanty(s) right next door. Talking with a few of our other travelers that have been coming here for 20+ years, they feel that the city has lost some of its charm. The government is working to combat these problems, but a series of them have been unsuccessful. This is the basis for the angry demonstrations. These people feel that the government is not doing enough and wants the Prime Minister to step down and hold new elections.
In the 60’s, traffic was awful…most people traveled by waterways (in the canals) rather than motorized vehicles. Almost all major streets were flanked with canals on both sides or were boulevards with canals running down the middle. Bangkok has also been referred to as the “Venice of the East”. By the 70’s many of the canals were replaced by multi-lane roads.
As Bangkok is not on the coast, we sailed into Laem Chabang, Thailand, which is about 80 miles from Bangkok
The Red Shirts!
Looking the other direction from our balcony we could see the Red Shirt demonstrators in cars and trucks as they drove across the bridge. At that stage, the protest was fairly non-violent, but unfortunately it has gotten out of control since then, and much more violent. this morning about 7:00am. This was a special day as the world cruisers were treated to an overnight stay at the Shangri-La Hotel. We all packed a small bag and were dropped off at the hotel after the long coach ride into the city. It’s a very large and beautiful hotel on the Chao Phraya River. We got a fabulous room with a nice balcony overlooking the river. Our timing for arriving there couldn’t have been better, as the ‘Red Shirt’ political demonstrations were mild, by comparison to the ugly and more violent that they became several weeks and months later. We’re confident that the company, captain or state department would have cancelled our stop there under the later conditions.
Following our check-in, we had lunch at the nice outdoor restaurant along the river. We had signed up for the Bangkok Canals & Royal Barges excursion. After lunch, we got into our open-air long boat that took us up the river to see a number of the sights, which started with the many small wooden shacks that rise out of the water on stilts similar to those in Brunei and other waterways that we have visited. Unfortunately, one of
Shangri-La Lobby
This is the impressive lobby in our section of the hotel, which had a couple. the attractions that was recently moved from the river is the floating market, where people sell their goods and wares from boats and canoes on the river. They were relocated to a more remote location on another canal. We also went past the Royal Grand Palace, that we will see tomorrow.
Our first stop was at the Royal Barge Shed, where many impressive ornate ceremonial barges are stored when not in use. The boats, carved in the early 19th century, take the form of mythical creatures in the Ramakien. The most impressive one is the Golden Swan, used by the king on special occasions. It is carved from a single piece of teak, measures about 150 feet and weighs more than 15 tons. When they are used, the dignitary(s) has a special seat and is rowed/paddled by many men.
From here, we made a stop and had an opportunity to feed the fish! We were given some bread and watch as the catfish swarmed around our boat as we fed them.
From there we stopped at the beautiful Temple of Dawn, also called Wat Arun, which is one of the top landmarks of the city. It is
Our Hotel Section
The hotel is very spread out. The one with the circular balconies is ours. among the most famous of more than 400 Buddhist temples and monasteries in the city. It displays the prang style typical of the architecture of the former kingdom of Ayutthaya (1350-1767). The temple’s design is symmetrical, with a square courtyard containing five Khmer-style prangs (towers). The central prang rises approximately 300 feet above the temple compound pavilion and contains images of Buddha’s life. It is surrounded by four attendant prangs at each corner. We had the opportunity to spend a little time there exploring and climbing.
After this great tour, we returned to the hotel and prepared for a fabulous world cruise event “Horizon Cocktail Reception”, a scenic sunset cruise along the Chao Phraya River on two of the Shangri-La’s private yachts, complete with a wonderful buffet dinner and drinks on board. We cruised up the river and saw many of the same sights that we had seen earlier in the day, except at sunset or as they were lit-up. They were quite amazing! At the conclusion of our cruise, we were treated to another spectacular fireworks display that we watched from our boats.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.059s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0361s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
