Bangkok

Day 23: Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Disembarkation: Bangkok, Thailand

Our day started early with our alarm going off at 5:45am. We grabbed our last breakfast in the buffet and then returned to our room to find our bill waiting for us. There was an incorrect charge, and I waited in a slow-moving line at the Purser's desk to get it corrected. Luckily they took off the charge without giving me any trouble, but it delayed our disembarkation for about 10 minutes. At 7:40am we walked off the ship (we didn't sit in the Cabaret Lounge like they told us to) and luckily our bags had already been pulled off and were waiting for us outside. The driver from Saliathaitravel was waiting with a sign with my name on it and he didn't speak any English but made a signal to wait for him by the curb while he pulled the car around. We had a large 9-seater passenger van because we had so much luggage they were afraid it wouldn't fit in a sedan. We were offered towelettes and chilled small bottles of water. I fell asleep for most of the drive and it was only 90 minutes to the Marriott Resort & Spa hotel. When we got out of the van, we asked the driver what time we were supposed to meet him and the tour guide, and he couldn't communicate and drew faces on my watch which I didn't understand. So I took off my watch and kept winding it forward until he told me to stop at 12pm. He said “minicar” and pointed to the watch, which made me think that a minicar with our tour guide was going to meet us at 12pm. That seemed late to me, as we had much sightseeing to do, so Hunter and I decided we would come down at 11am to check to see if they arrived early.

This plan became unnecessary because as soon as we walked into the Marriott, our tour guide, Tuk, stepped forward and greeted us. She had been waiting in the lobby and said she would wait while we checked in and grabbed some pants for me to change into for the Royal Palace. The check-in process was quite long as they needed to record the information from our passports, but we had some drinks and continental breakfast from the Executive Lounge. We were finally escorted up to our room, which was beautiful. There was a lot of cherry colored wood throughout the room and we had a nice queen or king sized bed and a balcony with two chairs and a table that overlooked a lot of vegetation and the pool (I think). The lobby, too, was gorgeous. All open spaces, lots of comfortable looking couches, lots of large floor-to-ceiling glass windows. This was definitely a 5-star resort!

At 10:15am we were ready to go. We hopped in a sedan and started getting lots of Bangkok information and history from Tuk. We learned, over the course of the day, that Tuk is 34 years old, married, and is trying to have a baby. She is studying for her PhD in Food Technology and grew up in the north area of Thailand in a family of 3 girls to parents who are farmers. 80% of the country are farmers, and mostly all remain farmers, except if they go to a big city for school and do something else like tourism. She would love to own her own tourist company but doesn't know much about the internet or computers and wouldn't be able to find her own clients. She thinks over time she is likely to return back to her hometown as her parents, grandparents and other relatives are still there. Tuk told us the Thai do not like business professions as they are very peaceful people and don't like the aggressiveness and confrontation of business. So, lots of Chinese have moved down from China and are filling all the business roles in the city. We didn't get to learn anything about our driver, and weren't even introduced to him, so there is nothing to share there!

Our first stop was a local temple, paid for by the people in the area, which housed the famous Golden Buddha. There was a great story about how the Buddha was discovered, and it is very beautiful. It was a good size, weighing 5.5 tons of gold, all of which were contributed from locals in the village in which it was originally carved. People donated earrings and necklaces and rings, all to be melted down. Gold is very precious to the Thai as it symbolizes wealth and there was a gold shop on every corner. The gold that is sold is 24k, vs the standard 18k in the US, so it is very soft and pliable. The temple was very, very crowded as Sunday was a day off for the locals and the start of the New Year, where most local Thai use as a good time to come in to the hundreds of temples in Bangkok to pay their respects to the thousands of Buddhas. We pushed our way into the temple, after removing our shoes, and stayed long enough to get the history from Tuk and to snap some pictures. There were monks and other men outside the temple narrating sermons to the people.

The next stop was Wat Pho, the Reclining Buddha temple. We first visited another special smaller temple with another Buddha, before moving to the long building housing one of the world's largest Buddhas in a laying down position. It wasn't the longest in the world, but the most beautiful large Buddha. This was made of cement and covered in gold leaf. Along the walls were 108 metal pots that symbolized the 108 Buddhas in a mural (or around a shrine, can't remember), and people would exchange money for coins that they would drop, one per pot, into the metal pots around the wall while meditating about good deeds.

Leaving Wat Pho, we crossed the street into a market area near a river. We crossed the river on a ferry and were dropped off at Wat Arun, The Temple of Heaven, which was built in Thai and Cambodian architectural style. This temple was VERY tall and had the steepest steps I ever climbed. It was made out of cement and covered with thousands of pieces of colored broken china. It looked almost like a mountain and we had to hold tight to railings to pull ourselves up the steep steps. It felt like rock climbing! We got a nice view from the top perch, but it was also very, very crowded, and very, very, hot, so we quickly climbed back down. Rejoining Tuk, she took us back to the river and we hopped into a long tailed boat for a private motor boat ride down the Canal. It was awesome – it felt like we were speeding through the Bayou! There was lots of vegetation along the river, although everything still looked dried-out from the hot sun. Hundreds of homes lined the many canals, some more luxurious than others. The small, run-down ones were made of wood and you could tell they were sinking or deteriorating and would soon be replaced by a sturdier, more expensive cement structure. We also passed many different temples and shrines that had been constructed along the canal. We saw children jumping into the river with swimming tubes, and other people hand-washing clothes in the dirty water. Tuk acknowledged that most people like us wouldn't swim in the water, let alone wash our clothes, but that it was common for the local people. At one part in the canal, we got stuck waiting for a dam lock to switch.

We were reunited with our sedan driver after the boat ride and we were hot and hungry by this time. Luckily he had chilled water bottles and towelettes for us. We only had a few minutes to enjoy the cool air-conditioned car, as we were soon dropped off at the Royal Palace and Emerald Buddha Temple. I brought my sweatpants with me and slipped them on once inside the gate, after we scarfed down the sandwiches we had packed from the cruise ship. Tuk took us first to the Emerald Buddha Temple and explained that it was one of the most revered Buddhas in all of Bangkok. No pictures were allowed inside the temple. The Buddha wasn't really made of emerald, but was carved from Jade, but it sparkled in its protective case in the shrine. It was much smaller than the other Buddhas that we saw. The Buddha wears a gold garment that changes based on which of the three seasons we are in: Summer, Winter, Rainy. Moving on, we walked next door to the Royal Palace section and saw a beautiful palace that was built in a Thai and Western European architectural style, with the base and main walls of the palace looking like European palaces, and the top of the buildings covered in the pointed colored roofs of the Thai culture. The grounds were fashioned after old English gardens. The palace was much smaller than those found in Europe, and we were not allowed inside. Instead, we observed the gas lit lamps from London and listened to Tuk explain more history about Rama V, who constructed the palace, and about the design of the place.

Our last main stop on the tour was across town, to the Jim Thompson house. He was an American silk merchant who built up a famous and thriving silk business and built a beautiful Thai house/complex in Bangkok. He mysteriously disappeared during a walk though the jungle in Malaysia where he was camping with friends. We toured the house and looked at Jim Thompson's impressive art collection of 7th and 8th century carvings and sculptures and looked at the way he lived in the mid 1900s. It was a very different experience from all the temples in Bangkok and one of the must see tourist spots. We saw a LOT of Americans there, and had to wait almost 30 min for the next tour to start (Tuk waited for us as the tour was led by the museum tour guides). There was an expensive Jim Thompson shop and a restaurant on the grounds.

It was getting late at this time, close to 4pm, and we headed back to the car. We made a stop at a stone factory – which was really a gem factory – and had to watch a 7 min video about the carving of beautiful Red Rubbies and Sapphire stones. We were then taken to the showroom where a very annoying woman tailed us like a hawk trying to sell us VERY expensive sapphire and ruby jewelry. We stayed less than 10 min and then rejoined Tuk who took us back to the hotel, where we arrived right at 5pm.

We are so glad we organized this tour as it would have taken us double the time to negotiate the crowds and hassle with taxi drivers to get us to the places we needed to go. The old city, which housed all the temples, does not have good public transportation (just buses) and has lots of traffic. Only the downtown business section has a Skytrain to get around. Tuk was able to slip us in back entrances after laughing it up with a few guards, and that saved us from waiting in long lines. She knew exactly where to go, where to stand, etc. Even getting on a private long-tailed boat was pre-arranged, so we got to cut the line and wait only a few minutes while our boat driver pulled up. Everything was flawless and perfectly timed. Tuk herself was a joy. She was humorous and so full of knowledge about Buddhism and Thai culture and history. She always made sure to check in to see if we were tired or if we wanted less narration, but we were able to keep up with her pace. She agreed that we saw the main highlights of Bangkok and said we didn't need to stay in such a nice hotel to see those sites, but we told her the hotel was free. If we had more time in Bangkok, she said we should visit the floating market, which is about 110 km outside of the city. We felt good that we saw the most important sights of Bangkok. Tuk had even driven us through Chinatown so we could see the bustling flower and vegetable and fish markets. The whole tour, including the pickup from Laem Chambang, cost us 9500 Baht + 1050 Baht tip, or a little over $300 for both of us for the full day. It was well worth it.

It was hard to form a full impression of Bangkok as we didn't see all of the city, just the old temple part. But I would definitely return for another two days to explore the city. The downtown area has a lot of skyscrapers and looks like a nice built-up area, and we passed a few large shopping malls we would have liked to explore. Plus, the goods and shopping items are so inexpensive, I probably could have spent a few hours in different markets, picking up some more souvenirs. I am slotting the city under Shanghai, but I think Hunter is listing it further down his list. The city was a lot more dirty and older looking buildings and streets than does Singapore, but it had an Asian and exotic feel to it, which I preferred to the Americanized feel of Singapore.

At 5pm, we went up to our room to wash up and then quickly headed back downstairs. The executive lounge had food set out for cocktail hour and they had a great spread of mini sandwiches, ravioli, chicken bits, fruits, veggies, pizzas and a whole dessert spread, including gourmet chocolates. There was also free wine, beer and hard alcohol, so Hunter had a gin and tonic. We filled up on the appetizers and didn't need a sitdown dinner in one of the 7 restaurants contained in the resort. We walked around the pool area and checked out the restaurants, spotted a giant water lizard, and then crossed the street to a nearby shopping mall. I bought antacids in the pharmacy and then walked straight into the glass door on my way out, not seeing it at all, because I was so tired! I thought the door was open! We decided at that point that I needed to go to bed, and my stomach was hurting pretty badly, so we headed back to the room. We took long hot showers, which felt so good after getting sweaty in the 90+ degree weather of Bangkok. As I was waiting for Hunter to finish, I fell asleep sitting up in bed, with the TV on.

We had a full 6 hours of sleep, but it was a restless night as there was very loud music blaring from the pool. They must do nighttime club/dancing music as it continued well up until 2am, and our alarm went off at 2:15am! Luckily we were so tired we could keep falling back to sleep, through the music.

Sawat Dee Krap from Bangkok

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Day 23: Bangkok, Thailand

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Heading South?