Day 27:

We left the Wood Castle Hotel in New Delhi around 7 AM for the airport. Our flight was not until 11:10 AM. Javeed recommended the early cab to ensure we had time at the airport. You may recall from our last blog some of the baggage challenges we had when we arrived in Delhi. It seemed a prudent precaution and proved to be particularly prescient (Ack! Alarm! Alert! Annoyance! You always aggressively activate my alliteration aversion!) (I think it might be getting too late in the evening for blogging).

As it happened, it was a very good idea (not all the silly alliteration but leaving early). About half-way to the airport, the driver hit a curb or another car and damaged the left front tire. The tire came off the rim on one side and we had a flat. We were in the left lane (the slow lane for left-driving India), blocking the lane. There was nowhere else to go with the concrete barriers on each side of the freeway.

The driver made a few phone calls and told us that somebody was coming. After a few minutes of waiting with the flashers going, he got out, unloaded some of our luggage from the trunk, got the spare and changed the tire. The traffic was moderately heavy, so the cars weren’t driving too fast. I was watching out the back now and then and nobody came close to us that I saw. The driver got the tire changed and we made it to the airport without further issues.

When we arrived in Bangkok, we hailed a cab and headed to our hotel. Once we got checked in and into our room, it was after 7:30. Room service had stopped for the night. I grabbed my laptop to work on blog stuff and we headed out for dinner. There were a couple of good restaurants less than a block from the hotel. We ate our first Thai food in Thailand. It was tasty and very similar to what we have had in the US.

Day 28:

“One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster

The bars are temples but their pearls ain’t free

You’ll find a god in every golden cloister

And if you’re lucky, then the god’s a she

I can feel an angel sliding up to me”

One Night in Bangkok - Murray Head (YouTube Video)

I have listened to that song since I was a teenager, and I have imagined visiting Bangkok ever since. Thailand officially banned the song because it seems a bit derogatory toward Bangkok. I loved the song. A bit of seediness is sauce for the goose. It was a joy to visit Bangkok. It has some of the same craziness that we found in India relative to traffic.

However, Bangkok was spared the damaging effects of colonialism. Apparently, the French and the British decided that since they both wanted Thailand, neither could have it and they largely left it be. Though military dictatorship lasted for decades which brought its own set of lingering issues.

The traffic is still pretty crazy. There isn’t the volume of tuk-tuks we saw in India. Instead, there is an utter flood of scooters and motorcycles. And while a two-lane road will typically only have traffic in the two lanes, the lanes still tend to be more suggestions than firm rules. For example, right lanes at stoplights frequently have right-turn-only painted on the roadway. But if there is a lane on the opposite side of the intersection to support folks turning from the cross-street, the right-turn-only will be ignored and folks just boogie straight ahead through the right-turn-only.

Blinkers are optional as is staying in the lane. The two or three lanes of traffic will fluidly move around objects, compacting the three lanes when there is an obstruction partially blocking a lane—a frequent occurrence given the lack of shoulders and the tendency for folks to stop wherever they get the whim. So, while a two-lane remains a two-lane unless a block on the side forces it down to one, it will snake around within the confines of the shoulders. All the while, scooters and motorcycles will flow in and around the cars like blood flowing through capillaries.

We slept in on Monday and didn’t get started doing the tourist bit until about 10:30 AM. Our first planned stop with The Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha called Wat Phra Kaew. “Wat” is the word for temple. A few things to note about the temples. Many temples do not allow photography within the temple, only within the grounds. They don’t like people in short pants above the knees, particularly women. Women can’t wear tank tops without a covering. Shoes must be removed before entering. And in some of the temples, women aren’t allowed at all.

When we were in South Africa, Faith bought a scarf to pad her arm within her sling. Remember the broken arm? Still in a sling as I type this on December 6. The limited range of motion she has had in her broken arm meant that she could only wear tank tops. She used the scarf as a shawl when she didn't wear a long sleeve shirt over one arm and her shoulders.

In front of most of the bigger Wats, there were clothing stores selling or renting pants, shirts, etc. for people to be able to go into the temples. We were both wearing short pants. We stopped at one of the clothing stores and bought a pair of over-pants for each of us in happy Thai patterns.

It was our first taste of a hot, humid Bangkok day in probably the most crowded site we visited throughout our time in Bangkok. The temple grounds are all concrete. It was hot. We spent about 20 minutes in our regular clothes plus the pants and shawl working our way through the audio guide that we paid extra for. Then we started to melt and headed out the back gate for some water.

It took a good 30 minutes to cool down enough to see the rest of the grounds. The palace and the temples were lovely. The Buddha itself was anticlimactic for me. The mystique surround the Buddha didn’t seem to be captured in the small, unassuming statue. In its seated position, the Buddha is only about 26 inches tall. It is constructed of a roughly emerald-colored jade (not emeralds). It has a set of removable gold clothing that are changed depending upon the season.

(I had to take a quick picture from the doorway because they didn't allow cameras, so the picture really doesn't do it justice)

According to the historical accounts, the Emerald Buddha was housed in a wat in Chiang Rai by the city’s ruler. In 1434, lightning struck one of the chedis at the temple exposing the Buddha that had been hidden inside. The Buddha came to be revered and was eventually moved to Bangkok (with a couple lengthy stops in between).

After the palace and the Emerald Buddha, we walked over to Wat Pho (AKA Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan).  This temple houses one of the most magnificent buddhas we saw in all of our time in Thailand, the Reclining Buddha. Wat Pho is the shortened version of the Temple's older name Wat Photaram. It was built in the late 1600s. The building that houses the reclining Buddha was remodeled into its current form sometime in the 1800s. It is a golden buddha laying on its right side. And it is 46 meters long (over 140 feet).

(Dig on Mr. Fancy-pants!)

Just…wow. It is a spectacle to behold. The Buddha rests on his left side with his head on a pair of golden pillows. His feet are covered in images made with mother-of-pearl inlay in what appears to marble. The body is made of plaster-covered brick that has been gilded.

Little pagodas (called chedis) were sprinkled here-and-there around the grounds. They were covered in tile flowers and plants. Most had a white base plus a rainbow of lovely colors. Some of the chedis were gold colored, either bronze with gold leaf overlay, or brick covered in golden tiles.

We left Wat Pho late in the afternoon and headed toward Wat Arun which is on the opposite side of the Chao Phraya River. The city has a web of canals branching off of, and flowing back into the Chao Phraya River. The city itself is only about four and a half feet above sea level. Dealing with the water is a big issue for Bangkok.

The rivers and canals have a steady stream of boat and ferry traffic. The most iconic of the boats is the longtail. I'll talk about that a bit more later. On this day we took a ferry across the river to see Wat Arun after taking a few pictures from the other shore. 

Wat Arun (the Temple of Dawn) somewhat resembles a giant chedi. It is technically a prang (a Cambodian Kmer type of structure) which has more of a tubular shape at the top. The prang is richly decorated with hundreds of thousands of pieces of colored clay and porcelain tiles in the shape of flowers, trees, animals, and various geometric patterns in white, orange, green and a scattering of blue. 

(Check out Faith's fancy anti-female-naughty-knees-and-calves pants!)

High up on the side of the prang, there are a set of figures recessed into each of the four sides. They represent the God Indra riding the three-headed elephant Erawan.

For Wat Arun, the primary attraction is the main temple itself, not a Buddha. We snapped a ton of pictures, then grabbed a ferry across the river to get some sunset and night shots of Wat Arun.

Day 29:

We started the day off with the Marble Temple, Wat Benchamabophit Dustivanaram. The temple is newer than most that we have visited. It was completed in the early 1900s. The temple building and courtyard heavily use white Carrara marble from Italy. The effect is a temple that positively glows with a royal feel.

The temple houses a Buddha of cast bronze with gold overlay. It is a lovely sitting Buddha image that is impressive on its own. By itself, it would not stand out in comparison to the many other Buddha’s we have seen. Wait for one in Chiang Rai. Seriously, WOW! What makes this Buddha so special is its placement in this fantastic temple.

In the temple courtyard are scores of Buddha statues in different dharma poses, or mudras. In one of the smaller temple buildings was one of the most interesting drums I have ever seen. The drum itself was around 6 feet long (2 meters). Projecting out of the bottom/back of the drum was a wooden megaphone if you will. It almost resembled a giant bike horn where the honker portion was the drum barrel.

From the Marble Temple, we took in The Golden Mount, Wat Sa Ket Ratchaworamahawihan. The Golden Mount is aptly named. The temple sits on a human-made mountain in the middle of the city. Atop the mountain is a 190-foot tall (58-meter) golden chedi. I didn’t find details on its construction.

The mountain itself was originally a gigantic brick chedi that collapsed due to the soft soil in Bangkok. Our pictures didn’t really do the chedi justice. From atop the mound, the angles are too sharp to get the full perspective of its size. We found a spot in a park a few blocks away that give a better idea of its height by noticing the tiny little ants that are the people crawling round the base of the chedi.

(If you squint, you can see little heads on the upper left near a red, white and blue flag.)

The last temple of the day was Wat Suthat Thepwararam Ratchaworamahawihan. This temple is made most interesting by the giant wooden swing that is in front of the main entry gate. The original swing was built in 1784 and was golden teak wood. It finally succumbed to the ravages of time and was rebuild in 2004, again using golden teak wood to be as faithful to the original as possible.

This temple also has an impressive marble floor in the courtyard and scores of Buddha statues. The temple lacks the marble of Wat Benchamabophit but it is lovely just the same. I particularly liked the tile roof in white, orange, teal and red tones.

(Buddha inside the temple in Bhumisparsha mudra position, "Calling the Earth to Witness" the Budda's attainment of enlightenment.)

(Buddha fasting.)

After getting our temple fix (no disrespect intended…quite the contrary), we headed over to Chinatown to check out the Sampheng Market. As we experienced in India, Thailand is awash with markets. Fruit, vegetable and flower markets are common. More common or the general goods markets.

If a swap meet were combined with an outdoor shopping mall, I think it would be a Thai (or Indian) market. It has all the little stalls with individual vendors of the swap meet and the outdoor shopping for new stuff of the mall. You can get just about anything you can imagine at a market. Including a tasty treat of scorpion on a stick.

As with other countries, we had to get our head-banging, metal fix and stopped off at the Hard Rock Café to get some new shirts. Bangkok had the best selection of exciting new Hard Rock T-shirt designs of any place I have seen. Chiang Mai was a close second a few days later. But Bangkok takes the gold. With shirts in-hand, we headed over to Taco Bell for a tasty not-American, not-Mexican bit of Mexican-American food.

Day 30:

Our last full day in Bangkok we decided to slow things down a bit. I had one big bucket-list item that I really wanted to do. I wanted to ride in a longtail boat. They are the colorful ones with the big turbo-diesel engines in the back with the long propeller shaft sticking out the back. Hence, a longtail.

The pilot steers the boat by manipulating the whole engine and driveshaft. The engine is balanced on a heavy metal pivot. The pilot moves the engine up, down and side-to-side for steering. He has throttle control on the handle that he steers with, as well as a forward and reverse option. Those diesel engines are monsters. Most of the ones I saw had inline, four-cylinder turbos. Something that could easily power a smaller pickup truck. When the pilot opened it up, wow did our boat scoot.

(Vroom-a-zoom-zoom! Speed Buggy the boat.)

The boat dock was just across the river from Wat Arun. We grabbed a few good daylight shots (the sun was more favorable in the morning from the north side of the river). It truly is a spectacular temple. After ogling the temple, we boarded our longtail boat.

We spent a couple of hours out on the water touring around the canals and the Chao Phraya River. Houses and businesses line the sides of the canals. And so do the monitor lizards. They get to be nearly 2 meters in length and swim like otters. Our guide said they are shy and not harmful to people.

(Just a wee little thing of only a little over a meter in length)

(Can you see it swimming between the decks?)

Nevertheless, if I were snorkeling and came face-to-face with one of those, I would probably drown on the spot. Now that’s a big lizard. We get lizards on our house in San Antonio. Imagine walking out your front door and one of these fellows is making his way up the brick on the side of the porch. Yeah, you know what I’m saying.

We wound down the day at the Bangkok Museum. It is a modest size museum for such a large city. Its focus is on the history of Bangkok. As I was walking around the museum, I was struck by a similarity with many western museums I have visited.

Much of the art from about the fifth century through around the 16th century focuses on Christianity. Central art subjects include Jesus, Mary and a variety of saints. The museums I have visited in India and Thailand have been similar insofar as a core subject for much of their older artwork being religion focused. Central subjects include Buddha, bodhisattvas (individuals on the path to enlightenment), and various Hindu images (also shared to a degree with Buddhism) including Ganesha, Krishna and Vishnu among others.  

There seem to be two sides to religion in both the east and the west. One side is a side that seeks to control the way people act, what they do, with whom they do it, when they do things, how they do things, etc. It is almost as if to say, “If I can’t do it (even if I really, really, really want to do it), then you can’t do it either, whether you follow my religion or not.” We saw that side frequently at the temples where “respect” was critical. But more critical for women than for men. Short pants in a temple? Okay if you are a guy. Get those dirty little hussy legs covered if you are a gal. One small example.

The other side is beautiful spirituality, kindness, compassion and hope. Paul from the Christian New Testament said, “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.” Buddha said, “Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.” He also said, “Like a mother who protects her child, her only child, with her own life, one should cultivate a heart of unlimited love and compassion towards all living beings.”

We finished our last evening in Bangkok chilling out. I worked on blogging while Faith sat by the pool reading and watching the sunset.

- See you all in Chiang Rai -