Sunday - March 13, 2005

Bangkok

This is a city where one could definitely suffer from templeitis constipitis, because you practically bump into a temple every time you turn a corner. But some of them are incredibly beautiful, even if they are a bit over the top, and those are the ones that we spent our limited time visiting. We booked ourselves onto the "Two Days in Bangkok on Your Own" tour, where Cunard just supplied the 2-hour bus trip and escort from the ship to the center of the city and back. Our itinerary was up to us and we managed to do everything we thought we could reasonably pack into our stay.

We had booked a night at one of the best hotels in the world, the Mandarin Oriental, before we left home and I'm so glad we did. The hotel was incredibly beautiful and, as the guide book says, it is a place where excellence vies with elegance. (I've included a photo of the main lobby.) It is well-situated on the river, as were most of the places we wanted to see. The service was top-notch, with more staff than I have ever seen in any hotel. Our room was on the 9th floor with a view over the river and was half again as big as our stateroom on the ship. We ate all our meals in the hotel, including breakfast in our room and dinner on the terrace of their Thai restaurant across the river. The hotel has a complete spa service and a cooking school, a lovely pool area, gardens filled with a wide variety of orchids, and beautiful public rooms and restaurants. I could check into the place for three or four days and never leave the hotel!

But we had things to see and places to go. First on our list was the 16th century Wat Po temple to see the golden Reclining Buddha in the city's oldest and biggest monastery. We didn't have a great deal of time before the temple closed for the day, so we decided to hire a water taxi rather than wait for the water bus to come. The cost was going to be 500 bat (approx. $13) for an hour and half, only we just wanted to get to the temple. The boatmaster at the Oriental Hotel couldn't stand to see us waste all that paid time, so he convinced us to let the driver give us a tour of the canals, or klangs as they are called, on the way. I'm glad we listened to him because it was a fascinating ride. We saw some lovely houses, but they were interspersed between sections of shacks on stilts, community temples, restaurants, etc. Obviously, there is no planning commission in Bangkok! Very young novice priests sat studying by the river. Our driver hollered at us when he saw something slithering out of the water onto the bank, and it turned out to be a large monitor lizard. The boat was an object of interest in itself. It was long and narrow, with a huge motor mounted in the back that had a propeller at the end of a long shaft. When the driver opened things up, that boat would almost stood on end and then shoot across the water.

We arrived at the temple about 45 minutes later to find that we had about an hour before closing, so we quickly took a fellow up on his offer to tour us around the complex. The Reclining Buddha was incredible (I include a photo of just his head here). He is 151 ft. long and 49 ft. high and he lies on one side, resting on one elbow. The soles of his feet are decorated in mother-of-pearl with 108 scenes of Buddha. In a separate temple is a gold statue of a seated Buddha, and it was here that we saw a number of saffron-robed monks entering for prayers. Seeing as no one was about to kick us out, we took off our shoes and sat on the floor to listen to the monks chant. Mike figured that we had stumbled across the Buddhist version of evensong!

We knew day two was going to be rushed because we had the Royal Palace and another temple that we wanted to see and we had to meet the bus at 3 pm. in central Bangkok. So headed off early, but it was a day that didn't quite go our way. We took a taxi to the Palace,but immediately headed off in the wrong direction to find the entrance. Once we figured this out, it was a long walk back in the sun (did I mention that the temperature in Bangkok was close to 100 and the humidity level wasn't far behind). Once we got through the gates, we were immediately herded into a section cordoned off by the police, where we had to wait for the King's grandaughter to pass by. We thought that we might see some fancy procession with elephants, or gold carriages, or something else exotic. Imagine our disappointment when about 20 minutes later a cavalcade of Mercedes Benzes filled with generals passed by, followed by a lime-green Volkswagon Beetle. Can you which car carried the princess? Yup, you got it.

Finally, into the temple/palace complex we go and we were astonished. This has to be some of the most stunning architecture in all Southeast Asia. Everywhere we looked we saw gold stupas, pagodas covered in colored glass, uniformed demons that stand about 20 feet high, walls of painted murals telling the story of Ramayana, prangs (towers) covered in bits of porcelain to make flower designs, and gold spirit figures. It was all rather overwhelming. Inside the Royal Chapel resided the most precious figure of all, the Emerald Buddha. Never mind that the Buddha is actually made of jade - it is still a sight. In the summer, which is now, it wears a diamond studded jacket. We were quite mezmerized by everything we saw and I couldn't quit taking pictures. We spent more time then we meant to at this site, but there was so much to see.

Finally we tore ourselves away.We had about an hour left, so quickly headed to the river to get a water taxi to a spot where we could cross the river to Wat Arun, The Temple of the Dawn, the last one on our list. All went well until we realized that we had missed our stop! We hopped off, but no bus was in sight and we were running out of time. I noticed a small group of Germans who were hiring a water taxi and decided to ask if we could hitchhike with them. They were going our direction so agreed to zip across the river and drop us off. This gave us just enough time to wander around the complex, get another water bus back to the hotel, grab a bite to eat, and get a real taxi into the center of town. We arrived with about 10 minutes to spare. No troubles as the Australians would say.