Christmas Vacation: Bangkok

Bangkok is bigger (or at least feels it) and more chaotic than Singapore, and much harder to get around. The metro doesn't really go where most of the tourist attractions are, and the taxis and tuk-tuks seem to be run by scam artists. Mostly I relied on the hotel car to take me around. The Thai people themselves are very warm and friendly, but there is a group of them that try to make a buck at the expense of tourists. Still, even at its worst, the hassles were less than in Egypt.

The weather was very hot, humid, and sunny, with the only respite being shade, car rides, and the hotel. In spite of that, I managed without too much suffering.

The hotel I stayed in was, um, interesting. It was quite new and in a good location, but they were going for a modern, artistic feel and took it way too far. The open plan bathroom was a little over the top (who needs an open view of the bedroom from the bathroom?). The interior, at first, I though was mostly bare concrete. I was wrong, the interior was completely finished and then painted to emulate the look of unfinished concrete. Who does that?

The time in Bangkok was spent mostly in the main tourist area around the Grand Palace. Within the Grand Palace complex itself, there is the palace and the amazingly impressive Wat Phra Kaew, or temple of the emerald Buddha. It has to rank as one of the most impressive sights I have ever seen. It is a collection of several temples, with detailed murals surrounding them that tell the history of Thailand. Gold leaf, intricate carvings, and statues are everywhere. I don't really know how to describe it. I didn't really even know how to look a it; there is just so much to take in you don't even know where to start. My pictures don't come close to doing the place justice, you'll just have to add it to your list of places to visit to understand.

The emerald Buddha itself, is actually quite small, though it sits on a very high throne surrounded by gold and jewels. It wouldn't look at all out of place in an Indiana Jones movie. Unfortunately, they don't allow pictures of it.

The Grand Palace is the former residence of the king, but is still used for some official functions. It is in a similar style to the temple, but is less elaborate and more approachable. Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to go inside most of it.


The next stop was Wat Pho, home to the giant reclining Buddha. It was only a few blocks from the palace, so we decided to walk. Along the way, we ran into a nice guy who wanted to practice his english and ask us how we were liking Bangkok. Then he told us that Wat Pho was closed (the tour books and the hotel driver warned us to ignore anyone who tells you things are closed, so suspicion was aroused) and we should instead go to see some other temples. (They were temples that would have been worth seeing on a longer visit, but I'd decided to skip them because they were more distant and less impressive). He said for 60baht we could hire a tuk-tuk to take us to all these temples and wait for us while we went inside. That is less than $2 for half a day of siteseeing, so even more suspicion. Then he said we should only use certain kinds of tuk-tuks (more suspicion), and then one of those kind suddenly turned up (now convinced of a scam). I balked and didn't get in and made an excuse to walk away to take a picture and didn't go back. A very common scam I've heard of in Thailand (from books and other people) is for tuk-tuks to offer you a tour for a ridiculously cheap price and then take you instead to an out of the way gift shop where you don't know your way back and try to pressure you to buy stuff. For bringing you to the store, the driver gets a kickback. Generally, all you lose is some time, but on a trip like this time is the most valuable thing you have and you can't afford to waste it like that.

Finally reaching Wat Pho, it was again very intersting an elaborate, though not to the extent as Wat Phra Kaew.

The highlight of it is the giant, gold, buddha. By giant, I mean, giant.


The last stop for the day was Wat Arun, across the river from the other sites. The unique thing about Wat Arun is that it is made out of broken china plates. The chinese ships that came to Bangkok to trade carried ballast with them on the way. In ancient China, the cheapest thing to use for ballast wasn't rocks or bricks like other people would use, but broken china. And what's really amazing, is that when the Thais built the temple, they went through all the broken china and found the pieces that originally went together and reassembled them!



After Wat Arun, it was late in the day, so we decided to take a taxi back. At the taxi stand, the driver refused to use the meter and insisted we pay him a ridiculously high (for Bangkok) amount of money. It was even high than what it cost to have the hotel car drive us there in the first place. To make it better, he flat out refused to negotiate down at all and said no other driver there would take us. Being tired, we paid, but we decided we'd had enough of taxis and tuk-tuks.

The rest of the pictures are
here.