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Bangkok, February 9, 2018
As we prepared to fly to Bangkok yesterday, the song, One Night in Bangkok, was repeatedly playing in my head. Did you know it is actually about a chess match???
We arrived around 6 and settled in. Our hotel literally sits on the Chao Phraya River. The river is wide and busy with barges and ferries, tour boats and water taxis. A high spanned bridge sits off to the right and the sun was setting behind buildings to our left.
Later we walked about a bit. What a busy street-life there is going on here.
We Americans, or most of seem to live quiet, singlar kind of lives in our own little castles. We get up, we go to work, and we go to bed. We have big comfy homes, with private bedrooms for kids and adults, a separate kitchen and a separate living room. What??? What I have finally come to realize is that here in Southeast Asia, everyone, virtually everyone lives with a lot of people in a small amount of space. That space is used mainly for sleeping. There is little room for anything else so all of their waking life is spent outside. They shop outside, eat outside, and socialize outside. And they love it! And the street life is active until late. Walking down the street is like walk down a busy midway at a big carnival. Noise, hawkers, people, colors, smells, lights!!!
We sat at an open-air restaurant among the many we could choose from —it was like throwing a dart. Where it landed, that's where we stopped. The food is still Asian but notably different from recent dishes in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It was fresh and very delish. There was so much we took some back to the hotel.
This morning, we boarded a long boat, first thing, and toured the city via River and canal-way. Bangkok was built long before cars so the primary mode of transportation was and to a great degree, still is boats on rivers and a maze of man-made canals. Bangkok is often called the Venice of the East. The river was rough and turbulent with heavy boat traffic but the ride on canals was very pleasant and picturesque. We saw typical houses, ones typically for the very rich and ones typically for the very poor . . . right next to each other. We saw several big, fat, quite scary -looking river monitors sunning themselves on ledges. These big freaking lizards eat fish. I were a fish, I'd become a flying fish to escape one of those monsters! I mean!!
Our destination on the boat ride was The Grand Palace, 1782. It sits on just less than one square mile and has government offices, homes for the royal family, throne halls and temples. It has been the royal home for 4 kings. Oh my ***, this was like Disneyland or worse. The crowds were horendus! Huge, rude, and Chinese!!! Honestly, I dont usually do this and I don't mean to generalize, but Chinese tour groups are something to behold. They push, shove, they stick iphones in your face, they push you around, they hog picture-taking spots taking selfies and posing for long, long times, and they speak in their outside voices. . . . even in places of reverency. Ok, I will get over this.
One of the temples in the Grand Palace Complex houses the famous Emerald Buddha. First know, this Buddha is not made of the precious stone, emerald, it is made of jade. But any Buddha that is green is called emerald. This particular statue is special because was in a temple in Chaing Rei in the 15th century—some say it actually dates back to 43BC, but no one knows for sure. As a sideline, I'll just say this, the Emerald Buddha's face and body is different from all other Buddha statues we have seen.
Back to story, the Chaing Rei temple was raided and most of the precious items were stolen. This little 26" green guy was left behand because it had been covered in plaster and considered unimportant. As it was being relocated eons later, an abbot noticed a piece of plaster was broken from the face and green showed through. Plaster was removed to reveal the true green statue. There is a long story about how the Buddha finally arrived in Bangkok which spans over 500 years. In brief, it arrived to this place in Bangkok in 1779.
We young Americans cannot fathom this kind of history.
The architecture of the elaborate buildings in the Grand Palace is a mixture of Chinese, Thai, English and Italian. There are 36 buildings on the site and each is simply gorgeous and many have outside walls and roofs of decadent mirrored, jewel-colored glass. They literally glitter in the sunlight. One is covered in nothing but gold mirrored glass from Floorence, Italy. Some buildings have exteriors of pure ceramic with each piece cut specifically to be a petal of a many-petaled flower, of a leaf or a vine, or a bud. And there are millions! The intricacy is hard to imagine! . Plus anything your see that looks gold, is pure gold or at least gold leaf. And just think, much of the construction on this site occurred in the 1700's 1,800's or earlier.
Change gears. Then we had a Thai massage. Never had one before! And it was one of the best massages both Stan and I have ever had! Our masseuses were senior students at the Royal University commissioned b the King. The massage is different from Swedish massages in that you are fully clothed and the masseuse is on the bed with you applying pressure to the body's acupressure point with their palms, forearms or even knees. I became so relaxed; I went to la-la land for most of the massage.
We were not excited about it but we went anyway to visit another temple. We have seen soooooo many! It was on the same grounds as the Thai Massage School.
Well, I'm glad we went. The Wat Pho houses the famous Reclining Buddha. The statue's interior is made of brick but its sleek,smooth outside is sold gold. It is almost 50 feet tall at its highest point and it's body is 150 feet long. It is It was built by a King Rama, the third king, in 1832. The Wat Pho dates back to 1781 and is the oldest and largest temple complex in Bangkok.
About three pm, we enjoyed a fine Thai lunch/early dinner with Pat, our guide here in Bangkok, tasting curry soup, beef in massaman curry and shrimp with vegetables. Lot of food! And a lot of coconut milk. Oh how I love coconut! It is not good for me though! The health rage these days is to use coconut oil for helath benefits. Yep! For many people, however, and I am one of those, coconut in any form simply shoots LDL (not the good one) way up! Note to self, "a little dab will do you."
From our hotel room, we spent the final hours of the late afternoon watching the sun go down behind buildings near the river.
- comments
Mary Sounds like the perfect place for our bus touring red head to visit-lol! She might meet her match!
Janie Hey girl! I'm still sitting here! Just released this post and saw yours! Yes!!! All rude people should travel together!!! I will never forget that redhead moment. I'm just glad we had our Joan of Arc on board to defend us!