Indochina Express - Day 22 (Bangkok)

March 24

Well, we've reached our last full day in Asia. I think we've reached the sweet spot between "we didn't see enough after coming all this way" and "I'm worn out and just want this trip to be over". We are picked up at 9 AM at our hotel's dock by a long-tailed boat:

I'm not sure why they call them that because this is clearly a big-nosed boat with a very long prow. But maybe it is because the propeller is at the end of a very long rod.

We ride along the Chao Phraya River until we come almost to Wat Arun. We pass a number of boats and a Navy base before we turn onto the Thonburi canal:

We go through a lock into the canal itself. There are a lot of other long-tailed boats going in both directions, so this form of excursion is clearly popular with the tourists. It is a little weird flying along in this boat (which has a serious engine) through what are essentially people's backyards. Many of the homes we see have small shrines in the backyard to honor their ancestors. But there are also a lot of little shops. We stop at one for tea, to feed the local catfish and to look at knick-knacks:

After this stop, we pass an area with a lot of shrines. Since Thonburi was once the capital of Siam, this is not a surprise. We stop at a couple of them, including a huge temple with a big Buddha that is under reconstruction. Yokie tells us that this is a very prosperous temple and is important for training monks. Many patrons have donated their personal artifacts to make a small museum. We see everything from Chinese Ming-style pottery to Motorola flip phones. Upstairs is a fancy jade-colored stupa. Here are some pictures:

Shortly after we get back in our boat, we are approached by a woman in a smaller boat crammed with stuff to sell to foreigners that she encounters along the canal. But rather than trying to sell us anything, she takes out a machete, cuts the top off of four coconuts and hands them to us. Then she hands us a huge gift basket filled with flowers, fruit and a bottle of wine from our travel agent:

What a surprise! We stop for lunch at a restaurant/farm that grows its own organic fruits and veggies. The signs on the property explain that their ancestors have farmed the land in this neighborhood for more than 100 years and that this area was renowned for its fruit and gardens. But as the city encroached and the canal became polluted with factory runoff, most of the gardens and orchards died out. This family purchased an abandoned junkyard and have created a beautiful garden, but more importantly helped to reestablish the community that used to be here. All of the food is grown locally, and all of the employees live in the area. 

The food is delicious. We try a few different things including a peanut/coconut/coconut milk mixture that is served on two types of leaf with a piece of tomato. The staff also cuts up some of the fruit in our gift basket and we drink the wine along with our meal. There is too much fruit in the gift basket for us to eat before we go home and we can't bring it into either the US or Canada, so we send the rest home with Yokie. Here are a couple of pictures: 

We are supposed to go back to the hotel the way that we came, but Yokie thinks that it will be too hot on the water. So, she sends the long-tailed boat away and arranges for two taxis with air conditioning to bring us back to the hotel. Given the goal of the restaurant, it is fitting that Yokie, Beth and I get a taxi that is an electric vehicle! We have a good time discussing EVs with the driver on the 45-minute ride back to the hotel.

For dinner, we go to a restaurant on the river that we discovered during our walk the previous evening, and yes, we did have one more mango sticky rice! After dinner, we go across the street to the night market to try to get rid of most of our foreign currency. I know that it is customary to haggle, but when I ask one vendor how much the Thailand National Football (Soccer) Team jersey is, he says 250 bhat. That's only US $10 so it doesn't seem right to haggle for something that would cost $50-75 at home. Next, we find a place that has small wooden demons like you would find in a temple:

Our son Sean wanted some art from our trip. We see two we like. One would be perfect for Sean, and the other one would go well with our collection of carved masks from previous trips. The vendor quotes us 900 Bhat for one and 850 Bhat for the other. I look in my wallet, but after buying the soccer jersey, we don't have enough cash. He takes credit cards, but this would still leave us with cash we don't want to bring home so I tell him thanks, but no thanks. He immediately drops the price to 800 Bhat for each one and says that he will go to 1550 Bhat for both. I'm sure that he would have gone lower, but again, this is only US $62, so we agree to the price - a good ending to a great day!

Indochina Express - Day 21 (Bangkok)

March 23rd

Our first stop for the day is the Golden Mountain (easier to say than "Wat Sraket Rajavaramahavihara"). There are 344 miniature steps (that I took 2 or 3 at a time) leading to a great view of the city. This temple was originally constructed when Ayutthaya was still the Thai (Siam) capital but was expanded by Rama I through Rama III. This mountain is actually the ruins of an older huge temple built by Rama II that collapsed during construction. Rama IV built a stupa on top which now holds some of the ashes of Buddha brought here from Sri Lanka.  One other interesting thing about this temple - between the reigns of Rama I and Rama III, it was the custom to not allow cremation inside the city walls because it was thought to be bad karma. This became a problem during the reign of Rama II when there were a series of huge cholera outbreaks in Bangkok. An estimated 30,000 people died and were removed here because it was the closest site to the one city gate used to move bodies for cremation. They could not cremate bodies fast enough, so this area became a food court for the vultures in the area. Here are some pictures:

Our next stop is a trip to the flower market to get offerings for our stop after lunch. We learn how to fold lotus flowers and Beth and Chris get jasmine garlands. We stop to have tea at a very nice cafe in the flower district with a mirror that says, "Just living is not enough, one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower". They have dried flowers hanging almost everywhere giving a feeling of having lunch in the garden. Here are a couple of pictures of the flower market:

The main stop for the afternoon is a trip to the Grand Palace. And it really is grand! It was home to the Kings of Siam (and later, Thailand) from 1782 until 1925 when King Rama IX moved to other nearby quarters. A lot of the material was taken from the destroyed city of Ayutthaya after the war with Burma. It is still used for official events, like entertaining visiting heads of state, today. There is a lot of bling here, but what surprised me the most is that it contains a to-scale model of Ankor Wat! Apparently, Rama IV ordered that Angkor Wat be moved to Bangkok to show Thai domination of Cambodia, but the project never really got off the ground (imaging moving all of that stone by hand and elephant) and since the King didn't want to back down, he later ordered a model of it to be built in the Grand Palace. But the key part is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. There are a lot of stories about the Emerald Buddha (which was carved from a 26-inch piece of emerald!), but it is believed to have been created by the sage Nagasena in what is now Patna, India around 43 BCE. Later, it moved to Sri Lanka to avoid a civil war and from there, on to Angkor Wat. When the Thais attacked Cambodia in 1452, they took it to Ayutthaya and later to Laos and then to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand until it was found in 1434 and moved to Lampang and again to Chiang Mai. It stayed there until 1552 when it was taken first to Luang Prabang, Laos and later moved to Vientiane, Laos when the King moved the capital after a series of Burmese attacks. In 1779, the Thais invaded Laos and took it to the Thai capital of Thonburi across the river from Bangkok and later moved it to the Grand Palace by King Rama I when he moved the capital. That's a well-traveled Buddha! Chris and Beth make their flower offerings, and we sit for a few minutes contemplating and cooling off. Here are some pictures:

After a couple of hours being roasted, we head for lunch at a rooftop restaurant with a great view of the former Thai capital and Wat Arun on the other side of the river. It is great to eat good food and enjoy the air conditioning! And yet again, we have mango sticky rice for desert although this version was quite different with the mango and sticky rice in a bowl sort of like a waffle. Here are a couple of pictures:

We have a variety of choices for the early afternoon, but we choose visiting a shopping mall in the new city (primarily for the AC!). This mall comes with a history. When the shopping center was under construction, they had a lot of problems (injuries, construction problems, etc.) so they consulted a monk who said that they should erect a Buddha on the property in order to chase away the evil spirits. So now there is a small four faces of Buddha temple on a corner next to the mall. Here are a couple of pictures:

Many people come with offerings of flowers or money, and there is a group of women in old Thai outfits that dance as part of certain offerings, but we catch them during a break. Inside, the mall is quite busy, although perhaps it is the locals just getting out of the midday heat. We hoped to find stores that are unique to Thailand, but most of the stores are the same as we would find at an upscale mall in California. After some effort in getting through the traffic, our driver picks us up and brings us back to the hotel for a brief rest before going out for dinner.

Dinner is on our own tonight, but we are still stuffed, so we elect to have some wine, appetizers and dessert at the hotel's rooftop bar overlooking the river. After dinner, we take a walk along the river to a park and then on to the night market across the street. Beth and I did not bring our money with us so we identify a couple of things we might like to buy tomorrow and head back to the hotel while Chris and Mark continue to check out the night market.