Bangkok, Thailand

The nice thing about not booking things in advance is having a flexible schedule. When our traveling arrangements didn’t pan out in the Philippines, we told ourselves that it was time to move on. After four nights of staying in a nice two bedroom suite in Manila, and having two lovely family dinners with Lola’s family, we bid good bye to Philippines and headed to Thailand.

Landing in Bangkok’s airport reminded us of the troubles they had about a month ago. It seemed people’s agony still lingered and reverberated in the strange tubular architecture which looked like a giant caterpillar. However, as soon as we got out of the airport and into the city of Bangkok, it seemed a lot more inviting to its tourists but with less number of them. Our first impression was: “you are now free to move around the country.” On our walk to the hotel, even an elephant nudged us with a friendly eye wanting us to hop on. It reminded us of the elephant sized luggage we shed along the way, the one we were dragging at the beginning of our trip.

Jook who lives in Bangkok, is the sister of Joanne’s golf buddy in Los Angeles. Joanne had met her several times in LA when she had come to visit. Jook wrote several emails asking us when we would be arriving in Bangkok. She had just returned to town after a long business trip and yet she took the whole Saturday to show us around Bangkok. She even brought us a bag filled with snacks and fruits.

This is the view from the Golden Mountain Temple. On this first stop, we saw that Bangkok has a mixture of old and new; ancient temples scattered in the midst of modern buildings. Jook and her driver took us around in a large van, which looked like a van used for group tours. The big difference was that the back seats were large and very comfortable leather captain’s lounge chairs. It turned out to be the van that she uses for her long business trips around the country.

This is the Grand Palace where the Kings of Siam used to reside in. It is the most famous and most visited tourist attraction in Thailand. It had a glittering display of many temples, buildings, and even a museum containing a lot of the royal regalia.

Inside the Grand Palace was Wat Phrakaeo popularly known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The Buddha was carved from a solid piece of jade and was adorned with three different types of clothing weaved from solid gold threads and jewels; one for the summer, winter, and the rainy season.  The weather so far has been just fine. Indeed, now is the best time to visit.

I thought to myself that one thousand photos was not enough to capture all of the beauty and the glory of the Grand Palace. Each temple was decorated with beautifully inlaid and intricate mosaics.

This building used to be the royal residence; with so many visitors, the current king moved out to a different palace down the road, which is closed to the public.

I have never seen a reclining Buddha until we got to Thailand and I told Joanne it must be that even the Buddha resorts to the reclining posture in hot weather.  It was colossal and the bottom of the feet was inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

After lunch in a seafood Thai restaurant where we had a dessert made of Durian, we visited the Floating Market at Wat Lampaya. Most of the locals seemed to shop there and it was only open on the weekends. Things were clean and the many items of fruits, vegetables, and baked goods were neatly packaged.

Ironically, we saw the sunset over Wat Arun (temple of dawn). We had to get on a boat to cross the Chao Phraya River; it only took two minutes to cross it.

This temple was totally covered with mosaics made of small pieces of ceramic tiles.

We had to climb very steep steps to get to the top of the temple, hanging onto the rails for dear life, but the view was well worth it.

Jook took us to this very popular local restaurant which served only Pad-thai. Jook said that they have the best pad-thai in town, which probably means that it’s the best anywhere.

The pad-thai was so good that one order was not enough for me.  In fact, all the Thai food has been delicious.

Next to this restaurant, was this dessert stand. They were making crispy thin crepes filled with sweet orange colored noodles and coconut.

Cheers to all! Happy New Year! From Bangkok, we celebrated new year’s eve. When we came down for dinner, we found that we were the only guests in the restaurant. There was a hotel staff of 7 who had to work on new year’s eve. We decided to have a party of our own, so we uncorked the champagne and we all got into a celebratory mood.