Thailand Adventure! (part 3)

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Bangkok, Thailand

February 28th - March 2nd, 2008


After a good flight with Air Asia from Pucket to Bangkok we found a taxi and headed toward Khoa San Road which is a big backpackers area in Bangkok (see photo above and below!). We dropped off around the corner from this street and since it was late at night we were surprised at how quiet the street was. Or at least we were until we turned the corner onto Khoa San and saw pure madness with market stalls, bar goers and other crazy things. We were exhausted so we headed right to our guest house which was yet another awesome place. It was literally a 30 second walk from the madness of Khao San yet it was super quiet. The building itself seemed like a house right out of the 50's and was super cool. It had a really nice garden and sitting area outside and everything. A nice little oasis that's for sure.


Once we had woken up we headed out to see the Grand Palace, Emerald buddha (Wat Phra Kaew), and Reclining buddha (wat pro) which were all about a 15-20 minute walk from our place. Walking around the Grand palace and Temple area was awesome and it was really cool seeing this old building that really seems like a true combination of Chinese and Indian architecture. A lot of Thailand seemed like a combination of the two countries whether it be the food, people, tradition dress and dance, or their buildings and I guess this makes sense since it is somewhat in between geographically. These buildings were just amazing. There were also many women and men there dressed in black. They were mourning the death of the King's sister. She had died about a month before we got here and they will continue to mourn her death for quite a while, I think it is 90 days. This particular princess - thought a great deal older - has been compared to Princess Diana in that she was the people's princess, helping within her community.


The emerald buddha is one of Thailand's most sacred Buddhas but we were both surprised by how small it actually is. Tucked away in this small glass box high above everyone was a 45 cm tall Buddha. Every season this buddha's clothes are changed by none other than the king of Thailand, he is the only one allowed to touch the Buddha. This temple is also the only temple in Thailand that does not have monks at it as well which struck us as odd as it too is the most sacred temple in Thailand. Another interesting fact is that it is that its actually made of jade not emerald like the name suggests. The reclining buddha was cool to see and was huge especially in comparison to the emerald buddha. This buddha is 43 meters long!


After seeing the sights we head back to our rooms to catch a nap, book a tour for the next day and get ready for the show we had planned for the night.

On our first full night in Bangkok we went to see Siam Niramit which was an amazing show and experience. We were picked up by a shuttle near our guest house and shared more traveling experiences with other travellers during the ride. Once we got to the theater we headed upstairs for the all you can eat buffet which was yet again absolutely delicious. We then headed outside to the courtyard to take in the little pre-show acts that were going on before the show and to see the old Thai village that was built in the back end of the courtyard. This was cool to see and gave us an interesting glimpse of what life was in Thailand many years ago. It was then time for the show which blew us away. It was full of spectacle, flying people, elephants on stage, amazing lighting and it even had a river with actual water flowing across the stage. This appeared out of no-where and was deep enough for one of the actors to dive into it. The whole show was awesome and was held in the tallest theatre in the world.


After the show we headed back to our hotels and we went right to sleep as we were still exhausted from the night before and had an early morning the next day.

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Today we had a jammed packed tour planned which started with us being up at 6.30am! Our first big stop of the day was to the floating market which is a famous tourist area just outside of Bangkok. We were dropped off and road a long tail boat for about 30 minutes down some of the canals many people use to get around in some areas of Thailand. It was really interesting seeing Thai culture in a natural setting. We'd see people sitting outside their house, washing clothes by hand or hanging laundry. This gave us some very nice non-touristy views, something that is hard to find in Thailand, especially so close to Bangkok. This place was very cool and it was really neat to just sit back and take in the action We sat and watched amazed at how the water is just full of boats and yet there never seems to be someone stuck or block in. No traffic jams or anything. People here were selling not only tourist things but also food. It was definitely worth the visit.



We then headed to the Tiger Temple with an unexpected stop at bridge over the river Kwai. I had heard of this place while planning things to do in Thailand but really didn't know much about it but in the end was really happy we stopped here. This was a famous spot from WWII.

The Japanese had forced many Dutch, British and Australian POW to build this bridge and many lives were lost (about 300, 000) while making this bridge. The Japanese needed this bridge to help get supplies further east. The POWs were treated very badly here and were forced to work almost around the clock. When the Japanese got word that the bridge was going to be bombed to try and cut off their supplies so the Japanese forced the POW to line up naked on the bridge, hoping that this would force the Americans to not bomb it.

The American's bombed regardless and part of the bridge was destroyed and many POWs killed. Apparently the river was unusable for a long time afterwards and the river had turned red with blood from the incident. This really hit home with me as my grandfather (a dutch soldier) fought in WWII in Malaysia which is not far from Thailand. Especially with the amount of Dutch prisoners used to build the bridge. The pictures and stories we saw at the small basic museum could have easily been something about him. As Laura commented as we left "No wonder he doesn't talk about it."


After leaving here we continued on our tour and headed to the tiger temple. This is a temple in Thailand where the monks had adopted some Tiger cubs and raised them by hand. The tigers (now many of them adults) are gentle and not frightened of human contact and so can be petted by tourists under strict supervision. Here we were also able to get our picture taken with the tigers and for 30 bucks we could have had the tiger put its head on our lap for a photo shoot but we opted for the regular pictures as this was close enough for us! We met some cool people on this day tour as well, two friends from the UK and another Dutch couple....again we exchanged traveling tips and with our trip coming to an end it got us excited about our next big trip which will hopefully be backpacking around the rest of southeast Asia.


As for the rest of the day we decided to check out the craziness that is Khao San road and it was here that I finally had a bucket...or bucket of death as they're called. Basically its a mickey of Thai Wiskey (or any other liqour), a coke and red bull or soda water all served together in a bucket. This is one of those drinks that is a "Thailand Drink" so I braved it and I'll just leave it that I've tasted better things in my life.

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On our final day we took it pretty easy checking out the shops along Khao San road before heading to Siam Square which is the downtown part of Bangkok to check out another area of the city. Nothing really different here from any other big city. We spent some time looking around a mall, which was huge by the way and had great shopping, and then headed back to to Khao San to be picked up for our shuttle to the airport. On this shuttle we met another traveler, this time from Italy. He works in a Hotel with his family and it is closed every winter so he uses this time to travel around. He gave us a lot of cool tips, especially for Italy of course.

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Between visiting here and China we've had quite the month! We loved our Thailand trip and it really got us excited for our next trip that we'll take when we're done here in Korea. We're not 100%!s(MISSING)ure where we'll be going and it all depends on where we'll end up next year. Most likely we'll be backpacking down Southeast Asia or heading down to Australia with a visit to Japan squeezed somewhere in there.

**** To see more of our pictures from Thailand click here ****

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Till our next adventure!

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Comments

[carson]

just read the three entries... sounds just wild... elephants, tigers, monkeys, banana leaf cigars!!! what will they think of next. Hope you're feeling better laura, and can't wait for the next installment of what animal will Ryan ride/clean/imitate... miss you two