The Thai counter looked at our hotel reservation voucher and asked us to wait. Within a few minutes, a suited gentleman approached us and said that he was to drive us to the Bangkok Palace. He led us to a shiny silver Mercedes and ushered us into the back seats. Before we knew anything, we were speeding away on the highways of Bangkok...
Bangkok roads are very crowded. Most of the cars were toyotas. With few exceptions, the remaining few are either Hondas, Nissans, Mitsubishis, or are Mercedes. Traffic is very civilized and well behaved. Everyone is relaxed. No honking at all. Driving is, like India, on the left of the road. The sweeping US style highways are quite fast, but the roads below are exceptionally slow. But on the roads, patience is the watchword.
The lady at the Thai desk in the airport had told us that Aug 12th was the Queen's birthday - and a national holiday. So Aug 11 evening would be slow and crowded. So, she arranged for our pick up from the hotel, on our way back, at 8:40pm, when the flight was at 12:40am. Anyway - in preparation for the Queen's birthday, there were huge portraits of the Queen everywhere, with announcements written in Thai characters below her. Most of the street signs were in Thai - the Thai alphabet looked like a mix of Tamil, Bengali and Oriya. I was quite sleep deprived - so I didn't invest energy in learning the alphabet...
At the hotel, we made our way to a small, nice room. The plan was to spend the remaining hours from 10am to 7pm sightseeing, and then get ready to go back to the airport. After a quick shower, we set out - armed with our cameras, a water bottle, our Bangkok book, a tourist map of Bangkok, and about 1000 Baht in our pockets. Our ambition was to do a walking tour of central Bangkok - all the way to Ratnakosin and back. That would be a total of about 10km.
We started walking. The streets were narrow, like the ones in Cuttack, leading up to wide crowded roads like the ones in Madras. Traffic was as crowded as Bombay or Kolkata - but of course - well behaved and without honking. Exotic aromas waft in the air - every street is full of fast food places. Looking at the sheer number of fast food joints, one wonders if the Thais do anything but eat... All kinds of strange looking fruits - dragonfruit (we learnt later), Durian (kanthal), and many many more of unidentified fruits were being sold on the streets. Dried fish of different varieties, fried fish, octopii, squid, crabs, shells, jhinook, googli - the Thais seem to be fond of the multitude of whatever one can find in the waters. The smells left me quite saturated. My t-shirt and jeans are now stinking of Thai food - even though what we ate ourselves was mild.
We first visited the Erawan temple. A small open-air Hindu temple of the four-faced Goddess Erawan. She might have something to do with elephants, although she reminded me of Brahma and Vishnu (Irawati). The Thais worship her for luck with flowers and incense. The temple is at a fashionable street corner, with huge flyovers on all sides of the street. It is a strange wedding of the ways of life.
After this we took the skyway train to conserve energy. The station was beautiful - reminded me of the last set from the movie "Entrapment". 25 Baht each took us from Ratchadamri to Saphan Taksin.
From here, we had a bried period when we were walking in the opposite direction. We realized soon and turned around. We had lunch at a small place - spicy fried seebass curry and spicy chicken in coconut milk. Most of the vegetables were unfamiliar - there were many items which looked like dumur, green gol-morich, and so on.
After a brief walk, we went over to the boat terminal on the Chao Phraya river. The floating pier was swaying to and fro and made us quite scared. Soon the express boat came - it barely touched the edge of the pier for half an instant - and we climbed on to the boat and were on our way. The boat ride was quite exciting. We saw Wat Arun (Wat means temple, the temple of dawn) from the river. It was a mighty structure, a beautiful piece of architecture, that makes its way onto the 10 Baht coins. Most of the Thai architecture have been conceived by one of the last nine kings of Thailand - from Rama I to Rama IX. Our journey from Wat Muang Khae pier to Tha Thien pier took less than 20 minutes.
Tha Thien pier is in Ratnakosin - the heart of the Thai royal neighborhood. The royal palaces, and many of the beautiful temples are here. The entire are is full of tourists like us and a gamut of shops selling fast food, and trinkets and amulets. We made our way to Wat Po - the temple of the reclining Buddha. Even before we entered the temple of the reclining Buddha, which is on the outside and isn't really the core temple, we were overwhelmed. The sculpted guards of the temple, the numerous temple spires (chura), the intricate carvings - everything was amazing. When we finally entered the temple of the reclining Buddha, we had very few words. It was a huge huge huge huge bronze Buddha, in an anantasayan posture. The room was full of the Buddha, about 45 meters long and maybe 10 meters high.
After Wat Po, we were both very tired. We didn't have enough cash to visit the Wat Phra Kaew (the emerald Buddha), nor did we have the time and energy. We walked through the Amulet market and Maharaj market, and then past Sanam Luang (the royal grounds) where they were preparing for the coming day - the RaniMa's birthday, and then to Banglam Phu. We had icecream and cool drinks there and then walked past the Democracy monument, the Loha Prasat (iron palace) and Wat Saket (golden mount) to the City Parapet, Phrakan Fortress.
Here we hopped on to another boat through the Klong San Sap canal. The canals waters were dark and stinky - the city's sewage was being dumped here. But they were quite deep and violent. The waves were huge and the boat was swaying too much for me and Dada to feel safe. However, the numerous commuters who seem to use this kind of a boat everyday, were quite non-challant and inexpressive. The boat ride through the canal took us quite a long way - from Phanfah Leelas bridge to Pratunam. We were asked to change boats at Pratunam and we reached Chitlom - a stop quite near our hotel.
After a brief walk back to our hotel, we freshened up - had a shower, and then went for dinner to another restaurant called Tom Yum nearby. A dinner of Pad Thai and Chicken Sate at 7pm, and then we slept for an hour or so, before we were picked up by the Thai Airways operator. This ride wasn't as fantastic as the earlier one - we were in a van with other people - presumably all of them were from Kolkata and were headed to New York City.
The formalities at the airport were quite painless. We had to pay a 500 Baht departure fee. The 30 Baht or so that we were left with never got spent.
Now the pictures... They are all in chronological order.
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| Bangkok"s tallest building, through narrow gullies | The canal boat on Klong San Sap | Goddess Erawan |
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| Goddess Erawan amidst complex flyovers | Dancers at the Erawan temple | The Chinese junk temple |
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| The Chinese junk temple | Bangkok and the Chao Phraya river | From the express boat on the Chao Phraya river |
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| Wat Thong nopphakhun | Wat Arun | Wat Po |
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| A guard at Wat Po | Another guard | Temple spires |
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| A bell in the temple grounds | Temple grounds and the Bot | Buddha temple outside the Bot |
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| Gates and guards | Temple spires | Hatted guards and temple spires |
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| The Reclining Buddha | The Reclining Buddha - from the mother-of-pearl toes | Loha prasat |
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| Democracy monument and celebrations for the Queen"s birthday | Flyovers and streets | Phetchaburi Road |