Left: Even Ronald McDonald knows the correct way to greet people: with a wai.

Monday was indeed a full day.  As were Tuesday and Wednesday, which is why Thursday morning is the first opportunity I’ve had to update the blog!

Monday

My guests had a variety of previous experience with Bangkok, from a visit during the Vietnam War for R&R to a quick weekend trip with me from Hong Kong in 1999, from a week-long visit two years ago to no previous visits at all.  (I’ll let you figure out which person has had which experience.)

I asked Tam, who works as the concierge at the Intercontinental, if he could recommend a tour company to work with.  His original recommendation was a man who was in China all of last week and didn’t get back to my email, so I asked for a second recommendation.  This worked much better as a lady who goes by Khun Piggy set up a very thorough tour with an ambitious guide, Khun Nina.

When I say ambitious, I mean, “you’re going to get every last baht’s worth of tourguiding out of me!”

Our tour included a stop at the Wat Traimit, the Temple of the Golden Buddha.  This unassuming wat dates back to the 13th Century and is located in the heart of Chinatown.  Its most commanding feature is a large Buddha statue dating back possibly to the late Sukhothai period (1238-1558 C.E.) that was originaly plaster and concrete – or so everyone thought. 

About forty years ago as the 3-meter tall (10 feet), 5.5 ton statue was being moved by a crane, it dropped, chipping the concrete exterior and exposing the gold inside, which is said to be solid.

Left: Sandy and me in front of the Golden Buddha.

Next door to the wat was a primary school that was holding their Father’s Day celebrations (the King’s Birthday, December 5th, is Father’s Day).  There were a group of young girls performing a traditional Thai dance for their fathers and other guests.

After Wat Traimit we continued into the old city and visited Wat Pho, which houses the Reclining Buddha.  This is a 46-meter long, 15-meter high statue that is one of the most impressive things to see in Khrungthep.  Most tourists see this, make a quick spin around the courtyards, and then are on to the next sight.  Khun Nina kept us there for about 90 minutes, exploring the rest of the wat in detail, including the very beautiful Phra Chinnarat Buddha done in Sukhothai style in the west chapel.  There is much more to see than I realized.  Also, she knew all the great picture angles.  She’d be walking then would suddenly stop, turn around, and say, “This is a nice view here” and sure enough, it would be a Kodak moment.

Outside Wat Pho there were several vendors including one that had a python that you could pose for pictures with for only 100 baht.  “Only” – it is actually a bit of a rip-off but it is fun to do nonetheless.  Here’s snake-charmer Sandy:

By this point we probably could have stopped for lunch.  We were all ready to, at least.  But we continued on to the Grand Palace and spent nearly 90 minutes there, seeing the key sights and visiting one throne hall that I’ve never been to before.

After lunch we drove across the river to the Royal Barge Museum.  It seems that most people get to this by boat, so the driver was unsure how we accesses the museum from the land.  We asked some people, walked through a lower-income neighborhood, and suddenly appeared at the back door to the museum!

The barges are beautiful.  The museum itself houses only the six main barges.  The fifty-some others are housed further down the khlong.  We watched a short video talking about the history and were able to wander around and see the barges from all angles.

Right: The prow of the barge Anantanagaraj with its elaborate naga figurehead.  The naga is a mythical serpent that appears with five, seven, or nine heads and shielded Buddha from the elements when he was meditating to reach enlightenment.  This barge is used to carry the monastic robes or floral offerings.

On the way back home we stopped at Wat Benchamabophit, the Marble Temple.  Made of white Carrara marble, this is a stunningly beautiful temple.  While we were there the main ordination hall was closed for an ordination ceremony.  We couldn’t go in but as we wandered around the courtyard we were able to watch novice monks who were waiting to be ordained for periods of 15, 30 and 100 days (six were actually going to be ordained for life!) as they visited with their families.  The novices were seated on plastic chairs and there family sat on the floor around them, hands folded in a respectful, prayer-like position as they talked to their sons and brothers.

So it was an insightful day but a long one.  Note to self: only schedule half-day tours from now on!

Tuesday

After such a crazy day on Monday we decided to go low-key on Tuesday.  About eleven we went up to the wet market that is across the street from the Chatuchak weekend market.  This is a daily market where you can buy all of the fruits, veggies, perpared foods and meats. 

Mom stayed behind to relax.  The rest of us explored different fruits, sampling a variety of things including durian, rose apple, and longan. 

We bought some Thai desserts, ate some bami (egg noodles) and red pork, and tried some lemongrass and sugar cane juice.  A little culinary tour!

Since Tuesday was the King’s Birthday and a national holiday, we decided to go into the old city to celebrate.  We had dinner at The Deck, a riverside restaurant with quite a view of Wat Arun (the Temple of Dawn).  Afterwards we went to the area around the Grang Palace to joins thousands of other people to watch the fireworks.  Our view wasn’t as good as it could have been – we didn’t want to get in the midst of the hundreds of thousands of people on sanam luang – the parade grounds.

Additional pictures forthcoming.

Wednesday

Every week on Wednesday I go to Samut Songkhram province to teach English.  This week was no exception.  What was exceptional was the twelve additional people I had in tow.  I’ll write more about that and share more pictures in the next day or so!