Bangkok in Between

Even though I was in Bangkok for almost a week, I only had a chance to do a little bit of sightseeing between all the convention activities.  Coming from Alaska, Kuala Lumpur seems like a big city, but going from KL to Bangkok is a whole different story.  Bangkok is home to at least 7.5 million people with 14.5 million in the greater metro area.  KL can only claim 1.6 million, although the greater KL area is about 7.2 million.  As I mentioned I was fortunate to stay with a fellow Ambassadorial Scholar during part of my time in the city and she had a beautiful view from the top of her building.  There are so many more sky scrapers in Bangkok; it’s really amazing to think of the sheer number people who live or work in those buildings and how we all co-exist.  For a charming account of living and studying in Bangkok, please check out Ashley's blog creatively titled Chasing Dreams and Curries!  She's really a much better blogger than I am, haha :) 

View of Bangkok from my friend's apartment.

One afternoon I snuck out to visit the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market.  Throughout my travels I have tried to limit the amount of goods/souvenirs/stuff that I buy, I still enjoy experiencing the markets just to see the crafts and of course enjoy the local foods!  I heard that this market was particularly huge and sold everything from silks to hip clothing, ceramics, fruits, puppies, birds, fish, and many other fluffy little creatures including these animals that looked something like baby squirrels (for pets, not eating...I think).  It’s so large that there’s actually an information booth (if you can find it).  I had to check at the info booth just to find my way back out of the market. 

Little turtles for sale at the Chatuchak Market.

As I mentioned in the last post, we had several activities with a sister Rotary Club in Bangkok and one of them was a night river boat cruise.  It happened to be on the night of the recent super moon so we were lucky to witness the huge moon peaking in and out from behind the clouds over the Bangkok cityscape.

Super moon rising over the banks of the Chao Phraya River, Bangkok.

The Grand Palace and Wat Pho where beautifully lit up at night. 
Hard to get good shots in the dark from a moving boat though!

Temple of Dawn....at night.

Super moon glowing from behind the cloud.

On one of the last days I headed out to visit the Grand Palace and some Wats (temples) nearby.  I knew they closed for the day in the mid-afternoon, so I made sure to rush over.  Well, unfortunately they don’t inform tourists when the Palace may randomly be closed for the day due to the Prince visiting and things like that, so when I showed up they said it had closed a noon and that I would have to come back the next day, oh well.  I did get to visit Wat Pho which made up for my disappointment because it features the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand.  In the reclining position it illustrates the passing of the Buddha into nirvana (i.e. the Buddha’s death).

This is an impressive statue at 46m long and 15m high!

Wat Pho is also the national headquarters for the teaching the preservation of traditional Thai medicine, including Thai massage.  So when you are hot, tired, and dehydrated, you can slip into an air conditioned building on the grounds and enjoy a foot massageJ.  There are many figures around the temple area depicting yoga techniques in which the original purpose was as visual aids. 

From there I opted to take another route back to the hotel by hopping a river boat taxi.  There were many locations along the river to catch a boat so I headed to the nearest one.  I arrived and it looked rather abandoned looking and there was no schedule so I thought I’d just wait a few minutes and if no boat came then I would wander on my way.  Eventually I saw one coming my way but it didn’t really look like it was slowing down.  It came straight toward where I was standing and the attendant just informed me to JUMP as the boat was still moving by!  Good thing I was wearing appropriate shoes or else I might have ended up in the very dirty river.