Our flight from New Zealand has personal
video screens. So does our flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok.
I dig that GPS navigation stuff with all those wacky place names.
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Our first day in Bangkok, we take a
three-wheeled, motorized scooter (tuk tuk) around to see some working
temples (Wats). We also sang the song, "One Night in Bangkok" a
lot, even though we didn't really know the words.
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Our tuk tuk took us around to 3 wats, but we
could barely understand the driver, so I'm not sure which wat this is.
He called them lucky buddha, sitting buddha, and giant buddha.
The buddha icon is inside elaborate buildings like this one,
except for the giant buddha, which doesn't really fit in a building.
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Bangkok is a big city and we covered a lot of
ground between wats, and much of it look something like this.
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| The next day, we walked to the Grand Palace
and were completely unprepared for the Disney-like crowds. We
hadn't seen any tourists on our previous day. The heat and the
crowds made it difficult to spend more than a couple hours at this
mind-boggling collection of temples. |
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My favorite part of the Grand Palace is the
mural that goes around the inside of the outer wall. The mural
tells the history of the Grand Palace from about the 1700's to the
1950's or so. In this frame, some monkey men are coming into the
city. In other frames, monkeys are guarding the palace. And
in one frame, King Kong helps an invading army attack the palace.
Or defend the palace... I couldn't quite tell.
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One of the kings who lived here ordered this
miniature of Angkor Wat to be made. Now, Angkor Wat is in
neighboring Cambodia in a town that means "Thailand defeated", but the
king still wanted a model of the temple.
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There were demons in the murals and in the
sculpture, like these demons holding up the temple. It would have
been nice to have a guide to tell me what was up with that.
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The Grand Palace has all the components of a
monastary except a place for monks to live. I guess having the
king live there makes up for the lack of monks. This building has
a magnificent jade buddha in it, but photographs are not allowed of the
buddhas.
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The next day, we visit a museum dedicated to
an American who boosted the Thai silk trade (Jim Thompson). His
house has lovely gardens and a great collection of Thai art. While
we're there, the rain comes down hard with lightning and thunder.
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