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Published: March 14th 2007
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Our train pulled into Bangkok at 5:30am, February 12. We had already booked the best accommodations in the city; at Laurie's condo, my friend from Sault Ste. Marie. I had not seen Laurie since she moved to Bangkok to teach at an international school 6 years ago. It was fabulous to see her again.
It was comforting to know that we had 5-star accommodations and a friend to give us some much needed advice on how to tackle Bangkok, the city of 10 million people. Laurie's Thai boyfriend, Danai, was our personal tour guide for two days. He was on holidays and generously offered to show us around Bangkok.
Now back to Bangkok's train station at 5:30 am. We managed to hail a cab. The driver seemed reluctant to take 3 foreigners aboard who didn't speak a word of Thai. Laurie had given us detailed instructions on how to get to her place. She stated that most cab drivers have difficulties finding her place. She encouraged us to call her if we encountered any problems.
The cab driver was able to get us to the general area of Laurie's place. He then spent 30 minutes driving around trying
The Grand Palace Complex
April had to wear a loaned shirt from the temple because women's shoulders and knees must be covered when visiting temples. to find the place. He called Laurie's boyfriend twice to ask for assistance in Thai and even that failed. He had to resort to hiring a motorcycle taxi to escort us to the condo. Incidentally, the condo was only about 100 meters from us. The cab driver seemed very relieved to be rid of us. He definitely earned his money that morning.
The following from the Lonely Planet's travel guide book provides an explanation of why finding Laurie's house located on a "soi" was a frustrating experience and one that was even too challenging for our cab driver.
Bangkok is a large and unplanned city. Street names are often unpronounceable compounded by the inconsistency of Romanised Thai spellings. For example, the street often spelt as Rajadamri is pronounced Ratchadamri (with the appropriate tones).
Many street addresses show a string of numbers divided by slashes and dashes; for example, 48/3-5 Soi 1, Th. Sukhumvit. This is because undeveloped property in Bangkok was originally bought and sold in lots. The number before the slash refers to the original lot number; the numbers following the slash indicate buildings (or entrances to buildings) constructed within that lot. The pre-slash numbers are Phra Sri Ratana
This stupa or religious monument is part of the Grand Palace complex. arbitrarily assigned by developers. As a result, you will find the numbers along a given street do not always run consecutively.
"Thanon" (abbreviated Th) means road, street or avenue. A "soi" is a small street or lane that runs off a larger street or Thanon. Thus, the address referred to as 48/3-5 Soi 1, Th. Sukhumvit, will be located off Th. Sukhumvit on Soi 1. Alternative ways of writing the same address include 48/3-5 Th. Sukhumvit Soi 1, or even just 48/3-5 Sukhumvit 1.
Whew, even just reading the Lonely Planet's explanation is confusing, let alone trying to drive to a specific address.
Laurie was a top-shelf host. She had fruit and breakfast all ready for us when we arrived at 6:30am. She gave us full run of her condo (including fridge, laundry, DVD, etc). She offered us her spare bedroom but apologized for only having a king-sized bed. We assured her that we were thrilled to be sharing such a huge bed. (Note that we had conceded to sharing 3 to a double-bed twice before during our travels).
We felt extremely privileged to have Danai as our personal tour guide. He spoke excellent English for
Wat Pho
Home of the world's largest reclining Buddha. only learning it two years ago. He taught us to ride the sky train and how to barter for a taxi. While we were walking to the Vietnam embassy to get our visas, we passed by a huge park. Danai pointed to the park and said, "That's where I did the Terry Fox Run". Thinking I had misheard him, I bewilderedly asked "A Terry Fox Run in Bangkok??". Yes, I did hear Danai correctly. The owner of the Four Season's Hotel admired Terry Fox so much that he hosts a Terry Fox Run in every city that has a Four Season's Hotel.
One can't go to Bangkok without hitting the outdoor markets and we definitely weren't going to be an exception. We went to an outdoor market along Ko Sahn Road (a famous backpackers' street). The other market was on the third floor of an air-conditioned mall. Both markets had numerous vendors selling all sorts of things under the sun (souvenirs, knock-off designer clothing and sunglasses, jewelry, pirated CDs/DVD, silks, tapestries, handicrafts, etc.).
We had a heyday shopping. I accomplished my mission of buying souvenirs for all 24 of my siblings and nieces and nephews at the indoor
market. It was like Christmas shopping in February. I wasn't the best barterer and softened quickly. I gave my business to vendors who either: took extra time with me, weren't pushy or lazy (some weren't even attending to their booth) or pregnant!
Oh yes, we did manage to pull ourselves away from the markets and Laurie's air-conditioned condo to visit some of Bangkok's finest temples and the Grand Palace. Lacking in descriptive writing ability, I'll let the photos talk for themselves. Here's "wat" we saw in Bangkok (Wat means temple):
- Wat Phra Kaew- The temple of the Emerald Buddha (It's actually jade not emerald).
- Wat Pho- Bangkok's oldest and largest temple. This 16th century temple houses the largest reclining Buddha. It is 46 m long and 15 m high with a gold leaf finish.
- Wat Arun- The Temple of Dawn
- The Grand Palace- The former royal residence and is used for special occasions.
All of these buildings were magnificent and displayed extravagant workmanship. The buildings radiated splendour. My favorite building was Wat Arun because it seemed less ostentatious than the rest of the buildings.
As we were walking to Wat
Wat Phra Kaew
One of the guards holding a giant golden stupa. Arun, we spied some wooden Buddhas with the faces cut-out of them. We stuck our faces in them and snapped a photo. Immediately after snapped a few photos, a woman jumped out from behind some bushes and said "That'll be 40 Baht (or $2.5) each". We were gob-smacked. She then pointed to the bottom of the cut-outs. Lo and behold, in the bottom left hand corner of each cut-out was printed 40 Baht in small writing. We refused to pay and had to delete the photos.
We did have a few noteworthy transportation tales. We instructed a taxi driver to take us to the Grand Palace. Due to the language barrier, he took us to a different palace in a different area of the city. It wasn't until we bought our tickets that we discovered that we were at the wrong place. The ticket lady was not going to give us our money back, even though we had not left the ticket counter. We retorted but she pointed to a sign that said "Absolutely no refund on tickets". I gave her a pleading look and nicely asked to have our money back. She still would not bend. It was
only under her work mate's persuasion that she finally returned our money.
During another taxi ride, the driver sped by a line of 8 cars by driving in the opposing lane. It took a couple of seconds for it to register that we were on the wrong side of the road. We yelped with shock but that only made him laugh. We emphasized that we weren't in a rush and begged him to stay in the correct lane. Despite our pleas, he drove in the opposing lane a second time. Needless to say, we were thankful to arrive alive at our destination.
A few bits and bobs that we learned from Laurie and Danai about Thailand:
*McDonald's serves delicious rice burgers.
*Danai lived and went to a school at a monastery between the ages of 12-15. He reported that he gained 20 pounds as a monk because most of his time was spent sitting in the classroom or meditating. Additionally, he tended to overeat because there were only two meals a day.
*Thai students prefer to use their nicknames instead of their real names in the classroom. Some nicknames are astounding like Pig and Fatty.
*Valentine's Day
How Gorgeous
While walking down the sidewalk, I saw this girl combing her grandpa's hair. is just starting to catch-on in Asia. We did see several bouquets of roses being delivered on motorbikes. I am still trying to figure out how the roses did not wilt after being subjected to a windy ride on a motorcycle.
One of the best bits I learned about Bangkok is that it has a gold-standard postal service. I went to the postal counter with 4 bags of souvenirs. I expected to a good hour packing and taping parcels to post. To my delight, the postal lady took all of my bags and happily packed the items into 2 boxes and then taped them up. I was overjoyed because all I had to do was write out the addresses and pay.
That's Bangkok. Please stay-tuned for Vietnam.
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Alana
non-member comment
Love it!
Celia, I just love reading your blogs...it's so exciting to hear about everything you've done and you're such an incredible writer! Colton has been practicing reading and has enjoyed learning about all the different places, although he finds some of the spelling difficult to read!