Bangkok, Thailand 6/20-22/2006

Here we are at the Bangkok airport. We find a hotel w/breakfast included and tour on for tomorrow for 2000 Bat or $26 each. The room is very nice as well as the rest of the hotel. We pretty much hang out in the room that night drinking some rum and watching "Twisted" w/Ashley Judd and a thief movie w/Clint Eastwood and me smoking some cigarettes. UGG!!!!! It's enjoyable to just do nothing some evenings and this was a very nice room to do just that. The next morning the breakfast is fabulous. Jenny (Paweena) picks us up at 9 a.m. Jonah, an American, is also waiting and I quiz him on the cost of the tour just to check if we got ripped off at the airport. You never know if you should wait or take the opportunity you have found. He has paid very close to what we paid for the tour. Ours was included with the cost of the room so it was hard to figure out what we were actually paying. There are 8 of us on this tour, three Americans, an Indian couple from Bombay who have a wholesale dollar store business, a Sri Lanka flight attendant for Sri Lanka Airlines and her mother and brother who speaks excellent English. That's our little group and very International indeed. We drive thru the streets of Bangkok all decorated with yellow flowers, banners and lights to celebrate the King's 60th year of reining the Country. It would be very beautiful to see at night all lite up. We had seen some of the celebration on TV while in China. We stop first at Wat Traimet Temple, a 13th Century Gold Buddha 900 years old and cast in the Sukhothai style. It was believed to be originally in the old Capital of Ayutthaya that was sacked by the Burmese in 1756. When the Burmese were about to sack the city, it was covered in plaster to hide it's value. 2 Centuries later it was thought to have no value, but in 1957 when the image was being moved to a new temple in Bangkok, it slipped from the crane and was left in the mud by the workmen. In the morning, a Temple Monk who had dreamed that the statue was divinely inspired, went to see the Buddha image. Through a crack in the plaster he saw a glint of yellow and discovered that the statue was PURE GOLD. The graceful seated Buddha is 10' high and weighs over 5 ton. It is the World's Largest Solid Gold Buddha. The architecture is tall thin spires and is a combination of Thai and Chinese. Very beautiful and hard to photograph as they are so tall. I have to use the WC and Jenny directs me to where it is. I don't see the lock while inside and a man first opens the door on me and then Jonah. I wasn't even embarrassed with my ass flying in the air. The toilet is a raised stand up and you have to bucket the toilet to flush. What a sight!!!! Oh wonderful......Thank God I made it!!! I join the rest in the temple, shoes removed, and admire this beautiful graceful image. It is quite a sight!!! We all put 5B into a machine to get our fortune. Mine is not so good. Jenny tells us that the Thais put them back if they are not a good fortune. I foolishly kept mine. We go on to Wat Pho which is the largest Wat in Bangkok and the oldest too. Built 200 years before Bangkok became the capital. This is where The Reclining Buddha is. It is 46m long and 15m high and is designed to illustrate the passing of Buddha into Nirvana. It is huge and quite amazing and I am taken back by the size. It shocks you when you enter the Temple. The feet and the eyes are engraved with mother-of-pearl decoration and the feet also show the 108 auspicious characteristics of the true Buddha. Wat Pho contains more than 1000 Buddha images. Prior to entering you must cover your shoulders. I have to use a shawl provided to get in as mine are not covered. Janeen is fine. We had purchased a necklace of fresh flowers, purple orchids and white jasmine, that is hanging around our necks. I have a surprise sneeze before entering and you've got it, I have a small accident. YIKES, thank God for the fresh flower necklace around my neck!!!! I have to finish the tour in agony and embarrassment. This has been quite a day for me.....we now go to the river and board a small boat with a long necked pipe with the propeller at the end, coming from the engine. They are very strange looking. We walk thru a large vessel to board this boat. The Indian couple are joining us. We tour the river and tributaries observing the life on the river. The Indian couple buy some bread to feed the fish and share with us. A Thai woman paddles up to the boat selling the bread. We feed the fish over the side of the boat and there is a total "fish frenzie"!
After the boat tour they take you to shops to purchase various items. I am ready and anxious to get back to the room and have this day over. I wait inconspicuously while the others shop. Finally we get back to the hotel only to have the key deactivated and we can't get in. Janeen goes to the desk to save us and negotiates a better price on the room forthcoming, $13 a nite. We finally get into the room and I shower, clean up and wash my clothes and now we're ready to go shopping. There is a huge shopping mall-like tall building near our hotel that the people at the hotel tell us about. I buy a short purple silk robe that reminds me of one I used to have and loved. I also buy some beaded bracelets that look like American Indian beaded work. They are very reasonable and like the ones I bought in Valparaiso, Chile. They cost me $1.30 each and I buy a red, lime green, white and black bracelet, all for gifts for friends back home. I may keep one myself. On our return to the hotel we pass an optical shop and go in. I buy a pair of RX sunglasses for $147 to be picked up tomorrow before we leave for Banphe to the south. They are bifocals and really nice frames. I have never had a pair of RX sunglasses before so am pumped. Back to the hotel for a yummy Pad Thai dinner and to sleep. Next morning we're up late to the wonderful hotel breakfast. Off to pick up the CD of our pictures from a 128 & 256 memory card for $1.95, a very good price. Make arrangements for the late check out at the hotel and go to pick up my glasses. Janeen decides to order a pair of regular RX glasses and picks out the frame and I decide to do the same. The 2 pair of glasses cost me less than 1 pair cost me in the States 4 years ago. We will pick them up upon our return to Bangkok from Cambodia and Thailand approximately 3 weeks later. Get our stuff at the hotel and a taxi to the bus station......on to BanPhe and Kho Samet, Thailand, south of Bangkok.........BanPhe and Kho Samet next........