Bangkok: Part 1

Flight 4 of 17

Sunday, March 25 to Monday, March 26

As the Tylenol PM again wore off, we awoke in Bangkok (BKK, via Thai Airways).  We had left the land of mosques for the land of Buddhist temples.  We took a train to the city and walked the last few blocks to our hotel.  (Actually, we walked past our hotel several times before a helpful masseuse saw us struggling to read the road signs and personally walked us to the hotel.)  Ryan found his way back to the same masseuse and had a relaxing one hour massage for about $16 USD (฿400 Thai Baht).

Later that first day, we took a guided tour of Bangkok, which included a personal tour guide and driver…all for a whopping $23.  We saw two temples (Wat Mahathat – one of Bangkok’s oldest temples, and Wat Benchamabophit aka the Marble Temple), drove by the royal family’s estate, ate local Thai food (rice with duck and pork on a stick), saw the Chao Phraya River, browsed a jewelry shop, and made a final stop at a custom tailor.  Ryan decided to have his measurements taken for a custom suit and eight custom shirts, and we picked out the exact fabrics with a tailor.

Our first visit to a temple

Kristen with our tour guide, Seni

The Marble Temple

We returned to the hotel, and explored the Bangkok nightlife on foot in an area called Siam Square.  We saw street markets loaded with sunglasses, purses, and rip-off everything, and we picked out “honeymoon rings” for each other.  (We didn’t bring our real rings on the trip, and these were much less risky at 60 cents each.)  We stopped by the Grand Hyatt for a pastry, came across locals praying to the Four Headed Buddha, then found a glow-in-the-dark “swanky” bowling alley and had dinner while bowling.

The next day, we ventured to the Grand Palace, where the Royal Family used to live but is now a public area and occasionally used for celebrations.  Inside, we saw the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  (The funny thing was the Emerald Buddha is only a few feet tall; the real feature was the towering, ornate golden throne the Buddha sat on, along with the hand-painted walls and elaborate architecture surrounding it.  Sorry, no pictures were allowed.)  We returned to the tailor for the first fitting of Ryan’s suit, and we made our way to the airport to continue to Cambodia.

Fun Facts About Thailand:

• Crazy drivers, but nobody honks
• Remove shoes before entering temples
• Traffic suddenly stopped, as the princess’ convoy passed us
• Taxis are hot pink
• Motorbikes everywhere
• The lion creatures (aka Singha) we saw everywhere are lucky

Ryan and Buddha