Survived our first day intact. We were told at the guesthouse that we could do all sorts of things in one day but the Grand Palace and the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho were about all we could manage before making it back to our GH for our one hour torture -- I mean massage session. This is really a great city, lots of incredible architecture and the food is fantastic. Pretty easy to get around in, too. Our excellent Guesthouse is off the main drag so we are not stuck with a bunch of obnoxious tourists. But, speaking of tourists, it is real funny (I am not using contractions because the apostrophe key on this Microsoft keyboard does not work!) ...
anyway, the most unfriendly people so far are our fellow American tourists...really weird...no eye contact, no smiles, just glares and look-aways...One American couple around our age approached Laura for directions and after Laura told her, they just walked away without so much as a thanks. Odd...Anyway, you do not want to hear about that...getting to the Grand Palace was not difficult. We got on the public boat (like the "vaporetto" in Venice) then walked through some interesting looking markets and followed the crowd to the Palace. We were stopped at one point by some official looking dude who told us -- in a most friendly and confident manner -- that the Palace was closed for a few hours due to capacity-issues and that we could come back at 1:00. In the meantime he had a friend with a tuk tuk who just this moment
was free and could drive us around to some of the other sights, then bring us back at 1:00 when the Palace would re-open again. What an amazingly kind man! Unfortunately for him we had read up on this sort of scam and weren't fooled, even when the tout kindly showed us photos of his wife and kids and asked us about ours. We brushed past this sad sack (go here for a sad story of a couple that failed to prevent this from happening) and proceeded to the main gate where -- alas -- Charles was told that his long khaki shorts weren't long enough -- he would have to rent some of their hideously baggy pants which they kept for 
occasions like this. Fortunately for Charles no photos of this embarrassing outfit were taken.The Grand Palace itself is an area encompassing 218,400 sq. meters and is surrounded by walls built in 1782. The length of the four walls is 1,900 meters. According to sacred-destinations.com:
"The palace and adjoining structures became increasingly opulent as subsequent monarchs added their own touches here and there. The palace as it appears today was greatly influenced by Western architecture, including colonial and Victorian motifs. Anna – tutor to the son of Rama IV and the central figurein The King and I – lived here."
While we were only allowed to look at the structures from the outside we were awestruck. Words cannot describe this magnificent place .... hopefully the photos will do it some justice. It was amazing but also difficult, at times, due to the constant throng of tourists. They just didn't seem to want to leave even when Charles asked them politely. One of the more interesting highlights was the miniature version of Angkor Wat. According to the Thailand for Visitors website:
After watching the "changing of the guard" (purely a ceremonial gesture as Charles noticed that none of the soldiers had clips in their machine guns!) at the Palace we realized that most of the tourists had beat a hasty retreat. We could see why -- it was the heat from the midday sun at its worst. We were drenched from the humidity so, after Charles changed out of his bizarro pants and into his shorts, we walked a few blocks over past various, interesting sidewalk vendors towards Wat Pho. Starving, we ducked into "Rub Aroon" one of the restaurants our guidebook recommended. Laura had a tasty lunch of green curry. The only drawback were the Euro tourists who smoked like chimneys behind us. Can't have everything.
A visit to Wat Pho (วัดโพธิ์) came next. This is probably the most famous Wat in Bangkok as it is known for it's Reclining Buddha. The Wat was built around the Buddha so it's pretty huge -- 20 acres long according to the pamphlets. While looking at the statue we kept hearing this "clang, clang, clang" sound echoing all around us. Upon investigating we discovered what it was -- people putting small change into metal pots which lined the entire hallway.
It's hard to believe but after being out and about for maybe three hours we were already sweaty and exhausted. We had made arrangements for an authentic "Thai Massage" back at our guest house. We eagerly looked forward to this and barely made it back in time to shower and change.
Alas, this turned out to be sheer torture - at least for Charles who was used to Swedish, hot oil-type massages. While Laura enjoyed a relatively normal woman kneading her muscles, Charles had a rather large woman stretching his limbs like a medieval torture rack. A particularly hideous moment occurred when the woman used her feet to stretch out a tendon. One doesn't
like to complain over such a normally enjoyable action but this was not exactly pleasant. 45 minutes later the torture session was over, the women paid, and we took a short nap -- which turned out to be longer than expected because Charles couldn't wake up! (Chas note: painful as the massage may have been, it relaxed the hell out of my muscles!)
A good restaurant had been recommended by a colleague from Charles' work. Though it's name may have suggested otherwise, "Hemlock" proved to be an incredibly tasty way to spend our first evening out. The large portions of traditional Thai food were a feast for our eyes -- as well as our wallets. The entire bill, including drinks, was less than $10 USD!
We followed a few backpacker types to Kho San Road -- the Bangkok version of the Venice Boardwalk here in L.A. Sort of the Venice version on steroids. This street was amazing. Knockoff designer
clothing could be had for chump change (and Charles took advantage of this by purchasing an "Izod" shirt for $5.00!), fake I.D.s for any kind of profession, strange tchotchke items, cheap street food, alcohol (but not tonight since alcohol was off limits due to elections being held that weekend!), a million types of t-shirts, and many more items of dubious legal status. If you wanted to party this was the place. We hung out for a bit then headed back to our guest house, gearing up for our big day tomorrow.
Alas, it is hard to believe we have only one more full day in this amazing city.
Rama IV also commissioned a model of the Angkor Wat temple in modern day Cambodia. At the time, Cambodia was a vassal state of Siam, and the king wanted to show the people the grandeur that was under Thai rule. As it turned out, his successor, Rama V, was forced to allow the French to occupy Indochina in order to preserve Siamese independence.It was an interesting model to look at and a good preview of what was to come when we arrived in Cambodia next week.
After watching the "changing of the guard" (purely a ceremonial gesture as Charles noticed that none of the soldiers had clips in their machine guns!) at the Palace we realized that most of the tourists had beat a hasty retreat. We could see why -- it was the heat from the midday sun at its worst. We were drenched from the humidity so, after Charles changed out of his bizarro pants and into his shorts, we walked a few blocks over past various, interesting sidewalk vendors towards Wat Pho. Starving, we ducked into "Rub Aroon" one of the restaurants our guidebook recommended. Laura had a tasty lunch of green curry. The only drawback were the Euro tourists who smoked like chimneys behind us. Can't have everything.
A visit to Wat Pho (วัดโพธิ์) came next. This is probably the most famous Wat in Bangkok as it is known for it's Reclining Buddha. The Wat was built around the Buddha so it's pretty huge -- 20 acres long according to the pamphlets. While looking at the statue we kept hearing this "clang, clang, clang" sound echoing all around us. Upon investigating we discovered what it was -- people putting small change into metal pots which lined the entire hallway.It's hard to believe but after being out and about for maybe three hours we were already sweaty and exhausted. We had made arrangements for an authentic "Thai Massage" back at our guest house. We eagerly looked forward to this and barely made it back in time to shower and change.
Alas, this turned out to be sheer torture - at least for Charles who was used to Swedish, hot oil-type massages. While Laura enjoyed a relatively normal woman kneading her muscles, Charles had a rather large woman stretching his limbs like a medieval torture rack. A particularly hideous moment occurred when the woman used her feet to stretch out a tendon. One doesn't
like to complain over such a normally enjoyable action but this was not exactly pleasant. 45 minutes later the torture session was over, the women paid, and we took a short nap -- which turned out to be longer than expected because Charles couldn't wake up! (Chas note: painful as the massage may have been, it relaxed the hell out of my muscles!)A good restaurant had been recommended by a colleague from Charles' work. Though it's name may have suggested otherwise, "Hemlock" proved to be an incredibly tasty way to spend our first evening out. The large portions of traditional Thai food were a feast for our eyes -- as well as our wallets. The entire bill, including drinks, was less than $10 USD!
We followed a few backpacker types to Kho San Road -- the Bangkok version of the Venice Boardwalk here in L.A. Sort of the Venice version on steroids. This street was amazing. Knockoff designer
clothing could be had for chump change (and Charles took advantage of this by purchasing an "Izod" shirt for $5.00!), fake I.D.s for any kind of profession, strange tchotchke items, cheap street food, alcohol (but not tonight since alcohol was off limits due to elections being held that weekend!), a million types of t-shirts, and many more items of dubious legal status. If you wanted to party this was the place. We hung out for a bit then headed back to our guest house, gearing up for our big day tomorrow.Alas, it is hard to believe we have only one more full day in this amazing city.
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