I woke up very early for the millionth time. But, I was very excited cuz we were going to Bangkok on an overnight trip. I showered, ate breakfast, and finalized my packing. Then, I met up with Achal and we headed to the Union. We signed in and headed down to the buses. There were 2 buses for our group and 2 guides, so they were basically splitting us in half. We climbed onto the 2nd bus (it had more empty seats), and met our guide, Marina. After we departed, she talked to us about Thailand for a few minutes, about some of the customs, greetings, eating habits, etc…I passed out soon thereafter…
I woke up with a jolt from a strange dream I can't remember. And I looked out of the window to see the city of Bangkok. It…was…HUGE! I saw skyscrapers everywhere, and large temples dotted the landscape as well. It was a visual explosion, and I didn't know where to look. Marina then talked to us about Bangkok. It's abbreviated Thai name is Krung Thep (pronounced kroong thep), which translates as "The City of Angels." I am from near Los Angeles, CA so I told Marina I was also from the city of Angels, and she laughed and smiled. The original Thai name for Bangkok is 35 syllables long, I think, the longest name of any city. But it was shortened to Krung Thep and it eventually became Bangkok (which the Thai pronounce Baan ko).
We drove through the city and eventually hit some traffic. Marina told us that traffic is a huge problem in Bangkok. The city itself has a population of 12 million and an area of 1150 square kms (convert it to square miles if you wish), which is TWICE the size of the entire country of Singapore! Also, the city has been called the "Venice of the East" (yep, Rel, the same Venice you are near ;)) since it has an extensive network of canals along which all the major temples/monuments are built. We headed to the pier to board a boat which would take us on a water tour of the city. As soon as we got out of the bus, we felt the humidity and heat. It was over 95 degrees F, with a humidity of at least 80%. It was hot! We headed to our boat and found seats. The boat itself was quite small and narrow. As I gazed into the canal network, I saw a plethora of boats going in all directions. Along the sides of the canals, I saw skyscrapers, houses, temples, and other buildings. It was very, very cool. We departed, and took a 45 minute tour of the area. I can't even describe what I saw cuz words don't do justice. I will upload pics as soon as I can, but what I will try to do is email all of you on my email list a few small pics (I sent out that test email earlier). If you are reading this, and you wanna be on the email list, shoot me an email at yjbhatt@semesteratsea.net I frequently mail out status updates, location reports, and pictures too. So let me know if you want in. Anyways, so we saw soo soo much along the canals. Our first stop was the Royal Barges museum. Inside, there was a collection of several ornate war barges. They were magnificently designed. We checked them out and learned the history behind them. Interestingly, the figures on the front of most of them were heavily influenced by Hinduism.
We got back into the boat and proceeded to our 2nd stop, Wat Arun (the temple of Dawn). On the way, we stopped near a temple where a sign read "Please feed the fish for good luck." Marina passed out some loaves of bread. I reluctantly (I was STARVING) threw in a piece in the water. Suddenly, 20 fish jumped up out of the water, devoured the piece, and vanished. I was startled, and everyone started throwing more and more bread. The water looked calm and empty until a piece of bread hit the surface, at which point a plethora of fish would surface and attack the bread. It was really cool! I decided to save half the loaf for myself, and wolfed it down ravenously. What?! It was very good bread, or maybe I was just THAT hungry…hehe. After the fish fiasco, we soon arrived at Wat Arun (let's see how carefully you've been reading this blog…what does that translate to without looking to the earlier reference?). It was very tall. After a brief history lecture, we got 15 minutes to check out the temple. The temple was dedicated to Indra, Hindu God of the lightning (I LOVE lightning! Hehe). The main tower had such a steep staircase to get to the top that it was almost like climbing a ladder. I slung my camera around my shoulder and climbed up. It was a semi-tiring climb (it was HOT), and I was covered in sweat when I got to the top, but it was worth it. The view from the top was amazing. We could see as far as downtown Bangkok, and directly across the river was the Grand Palace of Bangkok. It looked very cool from here, but I would have to wait until tomorrow to see it. We climbed back down carefully, and rejoined our group on the boat. We were all very hungry and the next stop was our hotel. The ferry took us back to the pier, where we got back on the bus and headed to the hotel. It took about 15 minutes to get there. And then, we stopped in front of our hotel, Hotel Sofitel Silom. I could not believe my eyes. The hotel was ENORMOUS, and it looked very, very nice. We got out and walked inside. This was definitely a 5 star hotel. The inside of the hotel was very nice, and I felt spoiled just walking around. We walked upstairs to have lunch.
Achal and I are vegetarian, so we asked the head cook if he could make us something. He gladly agreed, and they even hand-brought our dishes to our table. I went to the pasta bar, and ordered some spicy pasta. It was delicious…some of the best pasta I have ever had! Lunch as a whole was pretty amazing, and afterwards we went to get our room keys. I was staying with Chazz, who is the only other guy in our ship's a capella group. I walked into the room and was blown away…it was SO NICE! And from our window we had a view of downtown Bangkok! I saw the Skytrain go by below me against the backdrop of the skyline. It was a ridiculous view. Anyways, our guide had told us to meet in the lobby if we wanted to go to a tailor shop. What the heck, we might as well check it out…so we headed down. We took a van to the shop…it was a very nice shop. The tailor was rated one of the best in Bangkok, so it was definitely legit. We looked around and checked out the fabric, and it was amazing. We asked how much a suit would cost, and after a lot of bargaining, we got down to $200 for 2 silk ties, 2 custom shirts, and a full suit! Such a good deal cuz a good suit in the US would cost over $300, and it would not be custom made. I was very excited cuz the fabric was so nice…we got our measurements and I picked out my 2 ties and left. We returned to the hotel and relaxed for a bit before dinner.
For dinner, we headed to an interesting restaurant with a show. The food was pretty good, although the vegetarian options were limited. The show was really cool…it was traditional Thai dance, and I took lots of pics and videos. We returned to the hotel and then we went out to a market at night. It was craaazy! There was a swarm of people everywhere, selling all kinds of stuff. I bought a few souvenirs, but I had to bargain a LOT cuz the starting prices were outrageous since it was a tourist area. Also, Thailand is notorious for its prostitution problem, and we saw a lot of it in the market area. There were people everywhere handing out flyers and advertising clubs/night shows. It was ridiculous, especially being a tourist in the area. We had to constantly shake our head and fend off people just to walk through the market. And these night "shows" were nothing you would commonly find in the US…they were crazy and disgusting. We realized what people had said about the red light district in Bangkok…it was everywhere, not really concentrated in any one area. You could not ignore it cuz it was not limited to shady areas. Moreover, Thailand has a huge trans-gender population, and these so called "ladyboys" were everywhere, they owned shops, they were selling merchandise, they were advertising shows. Again, you could not ignore it, it was everywhere. If you walked outside after 6 or 7 pm, you saw that most areas of the city transformed into a red light district. After buying several items, I walked back to our hotel and fell asleep, thinking about everything I had seen that day. It's easy to ignore all these situations that clearly exist in the world, these problems such as poverty or prostitution or corruption. But the truth is that all of that does exist and it's not going to disappear just because you don't think it exists.
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