Saturday, November 17 2007. Bangkok, Thailand

(notes from my journal)

We slept well and felt energetic when we woke up the next day (at 5 AM). We just sat by the window gazing at the river watching it come to life as the sun rose. Oh, we so love it here!

We both got ready and headed for breakfast at 6:30am. We wanted to get an early start since we had a long day ahead of us. The breakfast buffet was excellent and also had a noodle bar, where we got rice noodles dipped in hot water and topped with basil, bok choy, green onions, chillies, roasted garlic in sesame oil and peanuts. Simple, yet ultimately delicious! Add to that, eating your breakfast by the river…!

 

We then used the courtesy computers at the hotel to send quick emails to let everyone know we’re alright and not lost.

Our destinations today were the most visited Bangkok sights: Wat Phra Kaew, The Grand Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Arun. All these spots are quite closeby to each other and can be done in a day. We also decided to visit May Kaidee for lunch since we’d heard quite a bit about this vegetarian only Thai place.

 

Bangkok is well known for the river express boats and they are a popular means of public transit in the city; it’s what we chose to use as well. They are pretty simple to use: Do not board boats with a blue flag (those are tourist only boats and cost much more). Boats with yellow or orange flags are alright, but might not make stops at each pier, so ask before you get on. In our case either was fine. The tickets are bought on the boat itself and cost B13 each.

We got off at Tha Tien pier and as soon as we got out of the pier we were ambushed by people trying to pull the most common Bangkok scam on us: Telling us that the Grand Palace was closed and they can take us to some other temple or shopping. Has nobody told them that all tourist books warn of this scam? They were not aggressive and we just smile and walk along without making any conversation.

 

While walking towards the Grand Palace we saw the Silpakorn University on our left and gave it a peek. At the Grand Palace we got our tickets (B250 each) and made our way to the main entrance. There was a horde of snap-happy tourists and our hopes of good photos ops or even looking around in peace were quashed. It was a mad rush in there and we generally felt lost. Just then, we saw sign saying: ‘Free Official Tour @ 10:00am’. The tour was for almost 1.5 hours. we were in a quandary, either do the tour and get to know the place but mess up the rest of the days plan, or don’t do it and keep checking things off our list (done without knowing what we did). We chose the former.

 

 

The tour itself was very good and worth the time and the lady who gave it was very polite and patient. She sang the name of Bangkok very sweetly (Heena is still trying to imitate her). She showed us around Wat Phra Kaew an explained its importance. It houses a very small emerald statue of Lord Buddha that was originally covered in clay and during a lightning storm the clay gave way and emerald was revealed. The statue has traveled around a bit (mostly shuttling between Laos and Thailand) until the founder of the Chakri dynasty (Rama I) brought it to Thailand. There is also a replica of Angkor Wat that is built to scale. The sculptor had to make multiple trips to Cambodia to get the measurements right. It was quite beautiful.

 

Around Wat Phra Kaew there are 3 other temple buildings that are closed to public. One of them is golden (real gold leaf), built in Sri Lankan style. The other two are used for special ceremonies by the king a few times each year. Both these temples have beautiful carvings of the Buddha on them. There also are carvings of serpents with five heads, but the heads are of humans. Such depictions of naga’s are very rare.

Along the corridors of Wat Prah Khew are murals with a lot of gold leaf in them that explain the Ramniken (Thai Ramayan).

 

After the tour we walked about the temple complex taking some photos since the crowds had sort of dispersed. Heena also made merit by offering some flowers and incense at the shrine. The Grand Palace was closed so we could only see it from the outside. We also saw all the snap happy tourists at the Grand Palace and so we just walked by it for the most part.

 

We asked one of the guards outside how far Khao San road was, if we were to walk it. We wanted to head to May Kaidee for lunch. He said about 20 minutes. We asked him if we could take a tuk-tuk and he said yes but there is no need since its not far. I asked him even then how much would it cost by tuk-tuk?

 

Guard: “Thirty Baht. Do you speak thai? “

Me: No”.

Guard: “Ok then B40″.

And we both started laughing. We decided to walk it since it did not seem far. Bad idea since we were going to get lost. I should have known – Murphy’s Law.

We stated walking along Sanam Luang park (since the pavement had shady trees there) and at some point we must have made a wrong turn at a turn since we got lost in some by-lanes. We met a British doctor, Lisa, who was just as lost as us. When we told her we wanted to go to a vegetarian Thai place she was excited since she was vegetarian too. Finally we found Tha Tanao which is the street on which May Kaidee is. After walking for a while we spotted another veg-only place so, tired we just walked in there and got really tasty rice noodles (just like the ones from breakfast). We sat and chatted for an hour about our experiences of life in India and US/Canada and she told us about her life in UK. After a while we split and made our way back toward the GP and onto Wat Pho.

We made our way back to Wat Pho and many people again tried to convince us that we should go to Wat In instead since Wat Pho was closed. Oh well. Smile and move on. Wat Pho is also a massage school and has one of the largest Buddha images: Buddha in a reclining position. We were amazed with the size of the sleeping Bhuddha and it was really a sight to see! The statue is so large that the building that contains it can barely contain it. Around the Buddha you could get coins for B20 to make meri. We got them too! Later, we just sat by a fountain, in the shade soaking in the atmosphere of the place. It was almost 3:00pm, so we decided to get a quick massage at the Wat Pho massage school. The wait time was 30-45 mins. We decided to forgo the massage and head to Wat Arun instead. We took a ferry (B3 each) across the river and clambered up the Wat to get some lovely views of Bangkok. Wat Arun is built in Khmer style. I’m not an expert on architecture (Khmer or otherwise) by any measure, but to me Khmer style = build high and make the steps so steep that they induce vertigo and acrophobia. It was fun climbing up. Coming down was slightly scary, but we made it.

We went back across the river and decided to head back to the hotel. We were tired and also wanted a nice shower. We had to wait for almost 30+ mins for a ferry and when it came it was jam packed. Reminded me of Bombay local trains. Because of the rush we got off at an earlier pier by mistake, so had a 5-10 mins walk to the hotel. On the way we saw a food stall selling rice and noodles, we gave it a shot to see if they can make something vegetarian. YES! Great! We got a veg fried rice! It was good so we ordered some salted spicy vegetables. When it arrived the vegetables were cold and we were hoping for something hot/stir-fried. we asked if we get something heated but instead she put a lot of chillies in the food. We just could not eat it after that. But later we figured it our that it was actually a salad dish and was meant to be cold.

We headed to the towers lounge at the hotel to watch the evening set into the river and eat some snacks. For dinner, we went to Harmonique, a Thai restaurant that is quite famous. Since it was a few soi’s (a soi is a side street) away, we simply walked it. The restaurant is located in the owners’ house so you have to walk through rooms to get to the tables if it’s busy (and it is). They also have a lot of antiques all over the place. We had a dinner of Pad Thai, Pha-nang curry, spring rolls and cashew nut tofu for about $12. The food was not bad, but it was slightly oily and “watered down”. It’s listed in almost every guide book out there so there has to be some westernization of the food.

Our first day in Bangkok was wonderful. We loved the city and the places we visited.

This post is a part of the Thailand, Laos and Cambodia 2007 itinerary