Thailand - Bangkok

This year, the company sent me to Thailand! Typically our team worked 14+ hour days, but on the weekend we finally had some free time and we were determined to make the most of it! By sleeping in!

Sleeping in accomplished, we met up around noon and grabbed a taxi to Central Bangkok. Despite being just 15 miles away, the cab ride took an hour.  Our host told us the southern side of the country is a short one-hour flight away! Or an 18 hour drive. That tells you almost everything you need to know about the roads in Thailand. That's not to say it was a boring drive. The highway was built over a river, providing all sorts of hydrological engineering to decipher, and the architecture in Bangkok is great as well. There was a building wearing a necklace that looked like a racetrack, a building with a claw on top, buildings that looked like boats, all sorts of weird stuff (in the best way).

Finally arriving in downtown Bangkok we were dropped off by the Grand Palace (est 1798). We were immediately greeted by a kindly local who warned us our female coworker's clothes were not conservative enough to get into the Grand Palace, and advised us on a wonderful tuk-tuk route we could take instead.  We ignored him, and went to the Grand Palace, where Anne's clothes were fine.  You could see the spires poking over the walls of the temple area, but it didn't really prepare you for the full tableau that strikes you when you walk through the gateway. The temple complex was packed with buildings, each of them tessellated in mirrored mosaic tiles. Except for the reliquary which is leafed in gold. Not accented or highlighted, the entire shrine was an unbroken layer of gold. We weren't allowed in, but apparently that building is where they keep a lock of hair from Buddha.

The wall bounding the temple complex tells the story of Ramakien. I can tell you the high points include making friends with monkeys, fighting dragons, fighting or possibly befriending mermaids, definitely fighting giants, building a temple inside another giant? climbing some clouds? it got weird.... to be honest I'm gonna have to read the book, it looked like a lot of fun.

There was even a scale model of Angkor Wat.  Angkor Wat is enormous, and so this model was also enormous, at least 30' on each side.  If anyone out there wants to go visit the real thing let me know, I'm absolutely down.

Angkor Wat chockablock with two other temples, renovation, and Japanese
 tourists posing. This is a 100% accurate experience.

The temple of the Emerald Buddha was the focal point of the complex. After taking our shoes off we shuffled in to check it out. Like everything else, it was overwhelming. As much gold, inlay, and mosaic as they could physically fit in to one building, with an enormous altar summited by a jade Buddha 4 feet tall and clothed in gold (There are multiple sets of clothes, and rituals to change them every season). Honestly, it's overdone. It could be much more beautiful if it were less extravagant and slightly restrained, more like the rear doors to the temple. These doors were some of the most beautiful craftsmanship I've ever seen - black enamel doors inlaid with delicate mother-of-pearl dragons writhing across the entire panel. Unfortunately the full panel doesn't photograph well since part of it is always in glare, but I found this sample.

And throughout the complex were statues of monkeys (who looked like demons), demons (who looked like the monkeys with larger fangs), half-man-half-rooster soldiers, half angel-half-rooster ladies... it was bizarre. In a great way.


When we finished with the temple complex we made our way to the palace itself (the ceremonial home of the king), which is remarkable for being western architecture with an eastern roof. Unfortunately it is only used for state functions and is not open to tourists. It looks like a classy place to have a swanky party.  We admired a few more impressive buildings and toured the on-site museum, which featured older parts of the temples, now replaced. The entire site is constantly under renovation and improvement, so the museum featured replaced portions of the temple, old thrones, gifts to the king and to the Emerald Buddha, even some elephant bones were featured here. Oddly, some parts of the museum were also shoe-free zones - but at this part of the trip it took far more than that to phase us.

By this point (4pm) we were worn out and ready for lunch, so we wandered towards a likely-looking market trying to find a nice sit-down meal. We saw a lot of foods for sale, but nowhere to sit, and when we rounded the next corner we were suddenly on a dock. Hey! In the (literally) 10 minutes of research I did on Bangkok I'd read that the ferry is the best way to cross the river and get to the other temple I was interested in seeing! And it was fifty cents. For the three of us.  So we took the ferry!

It was chaos. The ferry clipped the dock, hard, trying to spin around. Nobody really reacted, so it must be a normal thing. Another ferry was trying to slip into our berth as soon as we were moving, and fast boats were weaving between the larger ferries, so we were constantly cutting through/over chop.  There were two or three times where I legitimately thought there was a chance of collision with other boats. In short, it was great.

On the other side of the river the ferry emptied into more markets, more cramped and more eclectic, and more food! We ducked down an alley to a riverside cafe where we grabbed a table on the water.  Fancy soda drinks and a chance to get off our feet were both great. Eventually, we had pizza. Margarita (which tasted as expected) and Mexican Chicken (which was good, but tasted like an eastern approximation of dimly remembered tacos).  Unfortunately between slow service and the temples closing around 5pm we weren't going to make any more tourist destinations, so we strolled through the market. This market has cats - some scrawny and suspicious, some fat and happy... Eventually the market ended at another temple! Here service was underway and the temple was full of chanting worshippers. There were even a few overlow worshippers outside random windows, chanting along with the congregation.

It was now 5:30 and the shops were closing, so we made our way back through the market, back across the river, and back to our starting point.  From there we caught a cab and made the (now 80 minute) short drive home. Interlude! Time for ibuprofen, a huge bottle of water, and a bath.

We reconvened at 8:30 to find dinner. The in-house food wasn't all that appealing, so we went to the mall next door! We found a Sizzlers that let us pretend we weren't in Thailand for one meal this trip (the food here is never simple. I don't even bother asking what I'm eating. I know I've had a lot of shrimp, squid, and mushrooms, and I think I've had jellyfish and tripe as well. Not that it's bad, some of it is amazing - they're very happy to add sweet flavors where I'd never expect them - it's just complex and you can never let your guard down) I had a really good steak and a pretty weird seaweed salad.

Around 9:30 they started turning the lights off. I guess it's time to go! Leaving the restaurant we found they were turning the lights off in the mall as well. And the escalators (but as Mitch says, escalators can never break. They can only become stairs.).  The hotel had recommended the mall or the night market for dinner. What's a night market? No idea! But it's behind the mall, so we decided to find out.   It's a huge market that /doesn't/ close at 5:30 like everything else. Pop up bars, restaurants, clothing shops, tattoo parlors, it was enormous. We spent over an hour wandering, and at one point we stumbled into 1950's America. An old diner, a garage full of vintage American cars... it was bizarre.  But also very cool.  And also amazing people watching, since the younger generations were out in force, in every possible style.  On the way out of the market we found the coolest store ever. Switchblades, airsoft guns, plasma lighters...  I loved everything there. Unfortunately the rest of the crew was tired so we headed back to the hotel via 7-11 (I bought some milk candy. It's as bad as it sounds.)

And now it's midnight, and I have no idea what adventures tomorrow will bring. G'night!