2 Nights in Bangkok

27 Apr 06
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Heading to Thailand and then Cambodia for a much needed vacation (& the minor little detail that the kids I needed to make a visa run). We’ve decided on a round about trip for Thailand—a few days in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and then off to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I know quite little about Thailand besides what I'd seen in the King & I and what I learned about its involvement during WWII. I know absolutely nothing about Cambodia besides the name of its capital, that Angkor Wat is located there, Tomb Raider was filmed there, the Khmer Rouge & Pol Pot killed a lot of people and that there are still thousands of land mines scattered about. Otherwise this is a completely new experience for the kids & me. Trekkie's on a repeat visit to Thailand but his first 'tourist' experience as his previous visit was work related and really didn't allow him any time to explore.

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We flew from Incheon to Bangkok on Thai Airlines—purple luxury absolutely everywhere! Purple crazy A-Bear would love it!!! They keep offering us wine, beer & brandy on the 5.5 hour flight—all free! We've got such a crazy travel schedule in store for us that we don't accept the drinks. Definitely don’t see that in the US anymore in the Economy Class. Flew over Chejudo (Korea's Hawaii) and we could see quite a bit of the island that we visited last April and absolutely fell in love with. Then over East China Sea, Hong Kong, Taiwan. Meal included an impressive lemon mousse with shavings of semi-sweet chocolate with fresh coconut juice to drink. Nice! Then we observed the coast of Vietnam near Da Nang. Mountains—green, dark green, squash colored rivers, rust colored dirt roads, rugged mountains, large empty slivers of white sand beaches along the coast line. Then we passed over Laos. We couldn’t distinguish any sense of a border at all between the two countries because most of the region appears to be either uninhabited or rather lightly inhabited in the few bits of flat agricultural areas that we could make out. Tiny villages dot the landscape at a ratio of about 10% habitation to 90% jungle! Laos had even fewer structures, limited roads and mostly dark green and extremely rugged mountains than did Vietnam. Ubon Ratchathani is one of the larger cities we pass over—it’s small for US standards and is laid out in a geometric pattern—reminds me a bit of Central WA DC that is also laid out in a radiating geometric pattern—except Laos has nary a skyscraper. We also observe the Mekong River—large, wide with steep, rugged mountains that flank it. The water is a milk-coffee color possibly because it’s the dry season currently and it’s rather full of silt. Once we cross over into Thailand—obvious because it’s the Western side of the Mekong we see that it is much more built up, definite signs of agriculture abound—fields, crops, irrigation canals as far as the eye can see. Quite a contrast from Laos and Southern Vietnam!
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We land in Bangkok and drive to our hotel. My first thoughts on Thailand—orchids, cantaloupe, vibrant, colorful society, very ornate, glittery almost to the point of frilly in some spots, modern yet classic, open & very welcoming to other cultures. The Thais greet one another with the Wai—a form of a bow that incorporates clasping one’s hands together as if praying and elevating them to various points of the chest, neck, chin or forehead depending upon the stature of the superior ‘class’ of individual one is greeting. As a foreigner (known as farang in Thailand) it’s very difficult to distinguish where one ‘falls’ in this superiority hierarchy and you sort of bumble around in a modified stupor hoping not to offend others by greeting them with the incorrect Wai. Thailand is a kingdom and because of such there are various customs that one must remember while visiting the country. Don’t offend or speak harshly of the king, don’t point your feet directly at another person, don’t allow a hat or umbrella to touch the ground or table top--that sort of thing. Lots of new rules for a ‘Westerner’ to learn. The Thai people absolutely love children! RnrB & trkr are definitely ice-breakers for us. On the public transportation, adults (even elderly senior citizens) yield their seats to rnrB & trkr. Quite different from other places we've visited!

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We check into our hotel (Century Park Hotel) and start wandering around the city as soon as we could open our eyes (it was an early morning!). It had just deluged with a massive thunder & lightning storm right after we landed and there were large—GIGANTIC puddles everywhere. The air was warm and EXTREMELY humid. Quite a contrast from Korea at the moment. We found a tourist map of Bangkok and shunned the shuttle, taxi and tuk-tuks to roam the streets by foot and take the sky train instead. The sky train is really cool! It's sort of like Seattle's monorail but it's more efficient, has numerous stops around the city and is extremely easy to navigate. It costs about $0.50 per ticket but you can also purchase an all day pass (good to know for future visits) for about $2.50 or a weeklong or 30-day pass for much better savings.

trkr finds a lotus blossom near a Buddhist shrine adjacent the sky rail stop. There are lots of temples all over Bangkok--several within a few hundred feet of each other. They're quite glittery & ornate--moreso than the ones we've visited in Korea & China.

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Our first stop is to seek out the Silom Road geocache--one that only appeared a few days ago. It gives us a great excuse to get lost in town and it leads us to this really trendy section with lots of neat little cafes, bistros, shopping boutiques and interesting street vendors. We immediately stumble on a Starbucks & a McDs, though. Man! They're everywhere!!!

The markets have that Asian flavor--all sorts of items for sale--clothing, electronics, food, chicken 'rolls', curries, fruits, smoothies. We purchased some fruit juices: guava, passion fruit & passion fruit with red beet juice. They're all great!

Lots of interesting fruits for sale. Jack fruit, pineapples, mangoes, lychee, rambutan, etc.

Even found tiny squid or octopus on a stick. These guys remind me of some Nickelodeon cartoon character--really bulbous bodies with short squatty legs.

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Bangkok is a very modern city with frequent 'interludes' to the past. There are temples, spires and shrines all around. Fresh squeezed mandarin orange juice on every corner! Yum!

Walked through the beautiful and very popular Lumpini Park (I think this is the large park for downtown Bangkok as it appeared half the population was there working out after work that evening) and at 6pm everybody stopped in their tracks to stand at attention for their national anthem which aired over loudspeakers all around town.

There are flowers everywhere! I'm reminded that we're near the equator with all the sunlight and the beautiful tropical flowers that are thriving. Lots of birds--pigeons, crows & something that appear like ravens.

Even elephants--but not of the pachyderm variety. ;)

We crossed over one of several dozen bridges in the park and a man pointed out two large wild monitor lizards that were swimming around in the canals. We studied them for a long while and didn't know at the time that we would meet these two 7 foot long fellows again the following day while geocaching.

One of the 7' long monitors sunbathing. If you study the photo carefully you'll see the head of his buddy just sticking out of a little hole to the upper right.

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28 Apr 2006

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Up early due to the 2-hour time change & immense sunlight. The sun rises & sets at 6 everyday. Today we decide to take a river cruise and head out to the floating market and the big Arun Wat and the Royal Palace. We hop a taxi to the boat dock, pay for our long boat 'cruise' and then learn that they are repairing the canals near the Arun Wat & the Royal Palace and that we won't be able to visit those. We also learn that the floating market won't really have that many 'vendors' because there aren't that many tourists. So, we're taking a cruise just to take the cruise.

The kids enjoy the boat ride but we've somehow taken the 'slow' boat. We're passed repeatedly by others who are able to make the same 3-hour trip we take in about 30 minutes. We only have about 18 'daylight' hours on the ground in Bangkok so we quickly learn we should have found the faster boat so we could see more around the city. Regardless, the boat ride is relaxing and we get to see some different things we weren't expecting. We get a great view of the cityscape. Lots of skyscrapers, intermingled with shanties, boat building facilities and ornate temples. Once we turn into the canal from the river we have two small dugout boats pull up to our boat with vendors who try to sell us overpriced souvenirs such as wooden elephants, frog drum instruments, fold out fabric fans that convert into straw hats. We pass on the knick-knacks but do purchase 2 ice cold Coca Colas in bottles & a beer for our boat driver! Then we head to Thornburi Snake Museum.

Trekkie immediately dons a python around his neck. I don't mind snakes all that much but I learn that I prefer them a bit further away from me than tangling around my neck. I decide to only touch the python.

We watch some men charm (& anger) some cobras (& pythons). Scary stuff!

I only yield enough courage to touch the cobra (as does 4-year old trkr, rnrB is the only sane one in our group and refuses to touch any of them!).

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We also see rat snakes, crocodiles, tigers, soft shell tortoises, giant scorpions, and all sorts of birds. At one point during the show they anger the cobra to the point it flares a couple of times and they also milk it for its venom. Like we need any more reminder how vicious these things are! Not a snake I ever want to meet on the trail. The whole museum is interesting but very tourist-trap'ish. We fall for it but it is something unique that we'd likely never see in the US. The visit to this museum though is a good reminder to us that there are plenty of poisonous snakes and spiders in the region--a good thing because we've gotten pretty lax about that since there aren't any poisonous snakes where we live West of the Cascade Mountains.

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Once through with the snake show, we hop back on the slow boat to the other side of Bangkok, wander through markets, street vendors, tailor shops, gem stores and eventually reach the Sky Train. We return to Silom Road and enjoy a great lunch of Pad Thai with fried rice, sweet rice with mango. Excellent! While eating lunch I notice all the locals heading to this street vendor who appeared to be making orange 'julius' type icy drink concoctions--and the sweet aroma of these drinks waft our way.

The aromas are too much for me to ignore so I break down and purchase a drink--having no idea what it's called and not being able to read even a single character on her menu which is wholly written in Thai. I bumble through hand & arm signals to order the drink--pointing to the orange/limes (perhaps Chinese mandarin oranges?), sugar, sweetened condensed milk, black tea and ice. She blends them all and instead of putting it in a plastic baggy with a straw that she seems to be giving all the Thai customers--she gives it to us in a plastic cup. Awesome drink! I'm now motivated to try to recreate this concoction when we return home.

From there we return to Lumpini Park and attempt to locate a geocache in the area. Its clues take us to all corners of the park--involving lots of sleuthing, maddening calculations, counting stars in temples, elephants in the landscaping, determining distances from road signs & eventually a boat ride. We spend several hours looking for the cache and conclude that it's missing. Bummer! Upon exchanging emails with the planter later that evening, we learn that he was there the same time confirming that it had disappeared. Too bad--it's a great experience and introduced us to lots of neat things about the area. We saw several more of the monitor lizards again and even stumble upon a rotting turtle where the GC should have been. Yuck!

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For dinner, we enjoy more icy drinks--it's blazing hot in Bangkok & it's difficult for us to adjust! Ice lemon honey drinks, mint/guava smoothie, mango cantaloupe smoothie for the kids. Afterwards we head to Siam Sky Rail stop and visit the Shark Display at the Aquarium--the tix cost us about $2 per person (way less than what we'd pay in the US). We later learn that this aquarium is the largest one in the Southern Hemisphere. Funny-- it's billed as such because we're still north of the Equator--so we're starting to doubt their advertising skills or our geography knowledge. ;) {Trekkie majored in Mapping, Charting & Geodesy in college so it's really perplexing for him!}

At the aquarium, we see all sorts of interesting animals--here's a leopard fish that sort of looks like an eel.

Here's a pentagon-shaped sea star I'd never before seen.

Another unique sea star. This one had a very interesting geometric pattern on it.
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We return to the hotel and catch a swim in the pool until we're kicked out when it closes. I head for an hour long Thai massage while Trekkie's stuck with the kids (payback after 2+ years of geographical single-parenthood). ;) Something I'd NEVER do in the US because they're so danged expensive. In Thailand they seem to range in price from $3/hour to $30/hour. I quickly learn that I could get used to the process--a dangerous thing because they're so expensive in the US--so I'll have to get in my fill of massages in Thailand.

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Thai massages are a strong, therapeutic massage that involves contorting your various muscle groups, bones and nerves. Awesome. There were also options for a therapeutic aromatherapy oil massage where you could choose between: prai, lemon grass, ginger, nutmeg or mint oils.

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Throughout our time in Bangkok we meet many foreigners but few Americans (that we know about) besides the two Mormon missionaries and American businessman out for a run whom we stumble upon at Lumpini Park. Many Australians, New Zealanders (Kiwis?) & Koreans appear to be visiting. Otherwise, it mostly seems to be locals--perhaps it's because it's the hot, dry season & the fact that it's the middle of the school year in most places?

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That's it for our short time in Bangkok. Early the next morning we're up and out to catch our next flight to Northern Thailand. This is certainly going to be a whirlwind trip around the region! We barely get familiar with Bangkok before it's time to dash off to the next location on our itinerary. Note for future trips--longer stays in the area!