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Published: January 15th 2014
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Hello again my blogging buddies.I am not one to lay low for too long so today I went off to visit a couple more of Bangkok's must see sights.The demonstrators are still out there at the 7 intersections in the city but on my walk about today I saw no evidence of the shut down of Bangkok other than a few people on the Skytrain presumably heading to the demonstrations.
I headed to Chinatown today, taking the skytrain across the river then walking through the city.The streets were all busy and lots of coming and going.I travel with a good map and a small compass I received as a thoughtful and timely gift from Nicole.Street signs are somewhat of a challenge here but with natural boundaries like rivers you can only be lost for so long.
I was heading to find the world's largest golden statue a 3 meter tall 5.5 ton Buddah of solid gold!!!The statue is believed to have been made between the 13th and 14th century.A some point it was covered in plaster and broken glass to hide it from invaders fron Burma.The camouflage worked so well the statue remained hidden for a few hundred years.It
was moved a number of times and at some point in the 1800's it was housed under a tin roof near its current location.It was by accident that it was rediscovered when in the 1950's during a move the ropes broke and it dropped hard and cracked the plaster and the gold was revealed!
Wikipedia says that when the statue was stripped of the plaster a key was found that allows the statue to be taken apart, presumably for moving.In any event it is quite a sight and another highpoint on this trip.
The Buddah is housed in a new marble building built to house it properly and is a pilgrimage site for Buddists.I took a picture of a less than inspired monk sleeping on a table outside the temple.Not sure what he was doing up there but he was definately in an altered state.
From the temple I wandered into Chinatown.This area is what I imagine to be as authentic a Chinatown area as one would find in any city outside of China.Narrow alleyways filled with stalls with vendors selling goods or food vendors.Shark fin soup is advertised everywhere and from what I could see very
expensive.Bird's nest soup is also on the menu!
I walked along a couple of alleyways filled with vendors selling food stuffs I could not recognize.Piles of dried shrimps, sea cucumbers and all sorts of fish dried or fresh, teas and spices, sweets and vegetables.No one seemed disturbed by me, though there were not too many foreigners around and I enjoyed being able to walk around taking pictures without any feeling of intruding or imposing on the people of the street.
I recognized a street name after a while and headed down to the river pier to catch a ferry boat back to Taksin and the skytrain station.There is much more to explore in Chinatown so I am sure I will head down there again, probably later one day so I can graze through the food vendors for supper one evening.The ferry was packed as usual and always fun to see the life on the river.A good day with no signs of political trouble, a good thing. Bye for now from Thonburi.
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