Advertisement
As I write this journal, it is the 13th May and I am riding a fast train to the port of Bari on the Eastern side of Italy where we will catch an overnight ferry to Greece. The last two months since leaving Nepal has been packed with excitement and new experiences, hence the massive delay in getting these blogs written. Nevertheless, I will attempt to capture as many memories as possible about the sights and sounds experienced in Asia to give you some idea of what we've been up to over the last 10 weeks or so (good thing I took plenty of photos to remind me).
Arriving in Bangkok from Nepal, I was immediately taken aback at how orderly and civilized it felt. I had always imagined Bangkok as a chaotic, tumultuous and crazy place (which to some degree it is), but given what we had seen during the preceding months in Nepal, Egypt and Africa I guess our baseline of what constituted "orderly" had been reset considerably. As we had arrived a full day before our trip was scheduled to start, we decided to take it easy that afternoon and evening, catch up on sleep and head
out to explore the city the following day.
After a lazy morning hanging around the hotel room, we decided that it was time to get some "administrative" tasks taken care of and headed for the tourist district of Khao San Road to change money and organize our trip to Phi Phi island which would take place following our month traveling around Indo-China. Following a great deal of struggle, we finally managed to procure some US dollars (the number of places whose signs claim they are Amex offices fraudulently is staggering), met with a travel agent and sorted out our onward travel arrangements to the islands. Then it was time for a wander around the bustling tourist district of Khao San Road - you only have to be there for a few minutes to realize that there are a lot of foreigners in Thailand who have been there way too long - the cast of strange characters we saw would have looked at home in a bar scene of a "Star Wars" movie. Anyway, half an hour after arriving in Khao San we were happily ensconced at an outside table at a bar and stayed there for a good number
of hours enjoying the warm climate and watching the tourists amble their way through throngs of Thais trying to sell anything and everything.
With more than a few beers and mojitos in our bellies, we decided to dine at a fancy restaurant we had seen advertised in one of the airline magazines - after a quick return to the hotel to get cleaned up we headed out and arrived at a sumptuous, five star hotel and wandered into an almost deserted, but very atmospheric and beautiful restaurant. We elected to go with the buffet (based on the magazine's recommendation) and are we glad we did - it was amazing - freshly made sushi while you wait, roast meats of every persuasion, Indian and Thai curries, fresh seafood of all sorts and an amazing desert cart which satisfied even Janice's sweet tooth.
The following morning after a "typical" asian breakfast; several varieties of stir fried noodles, dumplings and other assorted goodies that normally you wouldn't dream of eating for breakfast, we headed off for the district of Ko Ratanakosin (the former royal district) enjoying again the feeling of whizzing through a strange city's streets in a "souped-up" tuk-tuk. Arriving
at the Grand Palace complex, we made our way to the main attraction Wat Phra Kaew otherwise known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha because it houses a disappointingly small, but very beautiful buddha image that is actually made of jasper, not emeralds. Normally the decoration covering the Temple housing this revered statue could only be described as gaudy, tacky and tasteless; but somehow, inexplicably in Thailand it works - the bright yellow gold, strong greens, reflective pieces of silver and purple tiles somehow mesh together to create something quite unique and beautiful. After wandering around for a while and admiring the statuettes 'holding' up another of the temples (these bore a strong resemblance to "Monkey" from "Monkey Magic" fame), we made our way to the Grand Palace for a look around. Unfortunately we couldn't get too close as the King's sister had recently passed away and there was some sort of funeral service for VIPs only going on.
We decided to leave and after attempting to get into several tuk-tuks and being asked extortionate fees by the drivers (never catch transport outside THE major tourist attraction), we decided we might have better luck with regular cabs -
the first two wouldn't let us in when I asked them to turn on the meter; so the third time we just got in a cab, he quoted an outrageous fee and I asked him to turn on the meter (which by law they are supposed to do in Thailand) - this cab driver belligerently refused to use the meter so we started shouting at each other and made a big deal of writing down his details so we could report him later. Giving up in frustration we got out of the cab and I shut his door a "little" too hard at which point he got out to examine his car and I thought we were going to come to blows right there on the streets of Bangkok. I must have looked angry (and the five months old beard probably helped) because he looked twice, backed away and drove off. We tried to track down a policeman to report him, but were unsuccessful in our efforts.
Simmering with anger, we wandered away from the grounds of the Grand Palace and came across a large tent erected in a pubic area just off the footpath - a local invited
us to a free lunch to mourn the passing of the King's sister so we decided to check it out - despite the initial strange looks we got from some of the locals they warmed up to us and we were able to get a couple of plates of rice and vegetables to eat. So we sat for a while to watch what was going on and Janice was befriended by an old man who attempted to speak with us in Thai (he was very curious about where we were from). After calming our nerves and people watching for a while, we wandered along the street until we were well away from the tourist areas where we were able to find a taxi that would take us back to the hotel (at a reasonable price).
Once back at the hotel, I decided to get a Thai massage to relax; now I'm someone who likes massages, but the 90 minutes I spent with this tiny Thai girl was bordering on painful 80% of the time - I was twisted, contorted, walked on and kneaded like a specialty bread; but when I walked out of there I did feel better (despite
the fact that I was a bit wary at first as the premises looked like a brothel - and this was the massage place inside the hotel!). Later that evening we met up with the group with whom we would spend the next 30 days traveling through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia before returning to Bangkok. The composition of the group was what we'd come to expect; several Australians, a few from the UK (couple of English and a Welsh girl) and several Americans - what was different was the way that everyone in the group got along like old friends almost from the outset of the trip.
After dinner and an evening out near Khao San, we got up early the next day and headed out with a local guide for a day of sightseeing around Bangkok. Heading down to the Mae Nam Chao Phraya (Chao Phraya River) we boarded a low-riding long tail boat for a tour of Bangkok's klongs (canals). These canals crisscross the city and cruising them provides a way to see older, traditional, ramshackle Thai houses teetering on frail stilts above the surface of the river. Each house is adorned with several flags; a
Thai flag and flags representing the days of the week or the King (ie. the King's flag is yellow because he was born on a Monday).
Stopping for a quick look at several other temples along the way, including the striking Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn), we ultimately made our way to the dock at Wat Pho where we disembarked (without anyone falling overboard) and joined the hordes of other tourists visiting the temple and it's resident star - the 46 metre long and 15 metre high gold plated reclining Buddha. After wandering through the temple a couple of times, we visited the other buildings in the temple complex, which is the oldest in Bangkok and dates back to the 16th Century. Janice and I then headed off to spend a couple of hours looking around Vimanmek Teak Mansion, the 20th Century home of King Rama V (while it is the largest teak mansion in the world, there wasn't much to see there).
Then it was time to rejoin the group and depart for the train station and our overnight train journey to the north of Thailand, Chiang Mai. Boasting almost as many temples as Bangkok and a
history that goes back over 700 years, Chiang Mai's old town was a great place to spend a few hours wandering around, visiting temples and looking at the medieval walls of the old city. After a brief visit to the nearby Hill tribe museum, which was full of interesting exhibits and artifacts from the various ethnic groups that populate the mountains bordering Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, we returned to the hotel to wait for our fellow travelers to return from their day of elephant and raft riding so that we could visit Doi Suthep temple - the most famous temple in Chiang Mai and home of a buddha relic (from memory I think it was a piece of bone). While waiting we got to play with an orphaned baby monkey that another tour leader had found abandoned when poachers killed it's mother in Laos a few days earlier - the way it acted was so much like an infant that it was easy to see the relationship between us and our closest genetic cousins.
After visiting the temple, most of the group decided to go and attend a Muay Thai kick-boxing match. This was great - to see these
Monk, Thai Highlands
This monk was wandering through Wat Phra Singh; one of the most revered temples in Chiang Maiguys, clearly in peak physical condition, pounding and kicking each other was very exciting. The ceremonies they go through prior to the commencement of the match was also very interesting to observe (as were the local bookies gathered around the edge of the ring). After spending a couple of hours dodging the sweat flying off the contenders as I was taking pictures, we headed back to the hotel to prepare ourselves for the next days crossing into Laos.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.07s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0324s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
