The Road Goes Ever On

Friday, January 17, 2020

Golden Buddha

Two more things I wanted to see in Bangkok were the Golden Buddha and Khaosan Road, the old-time hippie/touristy bit. Vicki wanted to see the Reclining Buddha; again. The best way to get to these things, and others in the historical district, was to take the Skytrain to the river and then to buy all-day passes on the hop-on/hop-off river boat system. Which we did. In addition to the sights above, we also saw a bit of Bangkok's Chinatown, which we had omitted in 2008 (after a month in China, how good could a Chinatown be?!), as well as Wat Arun and bit of the Royal Palace. And then the night-time cruise back down the river to Sathorn Pier and the Skytrain back to Nana and our hotel. It was a long, 22,000 step day, which I'll recount in this and the next three posts.

Us embarking upon the Chao Phraya (the river; major river of Thailand)

River scene

Long-tail boat; not the last we'll seen of them

Condos; the skyscrapers here are typical Asian, mostly
steel, glass, and concrete, until you get to the top, where it
gets possibly interesting or maybe even nods to architectural
history

Ashore now: container store

Skirting Chinatown, en route to the Wat Traimit, where sits the Golden Buddha;
enlarge and look through the gate to see another wat/stupa: attempted artsy-fartsy
shot

Inside the main building of the Wat Traimit; wats are monasteries, with all
kinds of buildings, educational, residential, religious

I assume this doesn't apply to blogs

You have been warned

And there, on the top floor, He sits

Looks pretty much like any of thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Buddhas
in Maravijaya pose throughout Thailand; but WAIT! as it was discovered a few
decades back, when trying to move Him, this guy is made of SOLID gold,
weighing in at 5.5 tons; largest golden sculpture in the world; had been plastered
over centuries back to avoid looting by invaders

As in the UK, you can donate to the monastery via your phone; smart merit

Rare dorsal view

Making merit is very big in Thervada Buddhism; also other religions, we have
noticed

Impressive palm sculpture

Vicki, there

Wat Traimit

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Chatuchak Weekend Market

Something we definitely did not do in 2008 was the Chatuchak Weekend Market, allegedly the world's largest, with 15,000 stalls. A younger but larger version of Instanbul's Grand Bazaar perhaps. We got there quite early, actually before it opened, at 9AM. Jet-lag. As the day and heat wore on, it became quite crowded, and, having got the gist of the thing in a few hours, we departed perhaps even before lunch.

It's a long way to Tipperary

No business in Bangkok is too small to have a shrine; here's
one of our hotel's, appropriately sleek and modern

Aboard the sometimes crowded but nonetheless air-
conditioned Skytrain; it took us a moment to figure out
who the orange guy was in the depiction who had priority
seating ahead of us seniors: monks)

More of the usual metro warnings

After a short walk from the Skytrain station, we are there

Helpful map

And signage

And now just some random market and shoppe scenes...

Franchise opportunity?

Among the hundreds of hall ways

Giant blue prawn; there are shoppes of every description...food, garment, eateries,
massageries, trinketries, jewelwries, household goods, furniture, collectibles....

Aromaries

Brew-in-the-bag coffee

Only delivery traffic is permitted

Multi-tasking men's room; perhaps a subtle reminder to wash your hands?

Headed back to the Skytrain...a line of cabs and buses delivering people to
Chatuchak

Bangkok's MBK Center

We arrived in Bangkok with an understanding that we would be pretty fatigued and jet-lagged for several days. At least we would pass this time in the comfort of a new American hotel and in a city we had visited before. For a time, I resolved only to see Bangkok sights we hadn't seen before; but that quickly passed, in view of the spectacular nature of many of the sights, and also in view of our fading memories. Case in point: the MBK Center, Thailand's largest shopping center. We thought we'd visited another, more up-scale, shopping center back in 2008. Maybe the Siam Center? So, hoping to see something new, we headed via the Skytrain (metro) to the MBK and took in all six floors of shops and such, gawking throughout, and finished with lunch at the (Asian) food court. Only then did the neurons begin to dance, and a quick check of the blog confirmed that, yes, we had done the exact same thing in 2008, doing the MBK and then having a Thai lunch at the food court. Well, it seemed like a new experience, all the way to the end. Some may observe this is about aging. In my defense I would observe that, as full-time travelers, we've seen quite a few cities and quite a few malls in the past eleven years. And the MBK did not seem quite so upscale as I had remembered it (or whatever I remembered).

View from the 29th floor of the Aloft hotel, Sukhumvit, Bangkok; 9 million people
live here

Ditto; the haze/smog/whatever limited visibility to a mile or so

The MBK, Asia's largest when it opened way back in 1985; 2,000 shoppes, a
couple anchors, giant food court, usual multiplex of cinemas; Ma Boon Khrong,
parents of the developer; in case you're interested

Clue that you're in the retail zone: an array of ATMs greet you

Took almost the same pic in 2008

New King: Rama X; long live the King!

Maybe another day

Sweet shoppe on the 6th floor

Main course, a real Tom Yum...

Coming to a mall near you

Ditto

Just like back home, except here, they're everywhere

That's E-Bomb (Egg-Bomb)

Possibly not coming to a mall near you

Friday, January 10, 2020

On To Bangkok

Having packed and put Le Sport into storage, we departed January 7 for our next adventure, nearly three months in southeast Asia...21 hours in airplanes, another several at the terminals in San Francisco and Tokyo, and finally arrival at Suvarnabhumi at 1 AM on January 9th. After an initial short night at the At Residence/Suvarnabhumi, we moved to our new temporary home, the 29th floor of the Aloft Bangkok Sukhumvit.