Friday, July 13, 2007
Today we had a great (if hot) day. We woke up early (to avoid the heat, which wasn’t really successful) and headed over to Wat Phra Kaew, the Grand Palace, and Wat Pho. Wats are Buddist Temples and the Grand Palace. Wat Phra Kaew is a temple which houses the “Emerald Buddah,” the most revered Buddah in all of Thailand (although we never really did find out why he was the most revered—the language barrier complicates things quite often—more than we would like). Although the architecture of the temple was amazing and very “Thai,” I found the Emerald Buddah a bit humorous since he is only 66 cm high—not big at all! He even has three outfits for the three Thai seasons (I bet you didn’t know that there are only three seasons in Thailand!): hot season, rainy season, and cool season (as if it could really be that cool!). At the turn of every season the King comes and changes the Emerald Buddah’s “robes” (they are really intricate gold chest pieces, not really robes at all). All in all, the Buddah was a bit difficult to pick out from the ornate gold statues, miniature thrones, and Buddhist paraphernalia, but it was a worthwhile visit nonetheless.
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From there was we headed over the Grand Palace (its really just next door) where the Thai King used to live. Now though he lives someplace else and only really special guests (like Queen Elizabeth and Bill Clinton) get to actually stay in the Grand Palace. The architecture of these buildings was just as typical “Thai” as Wat Phra Kaew. It was neat to walk around the buildings and look inside some of them. We were impressed with the main receiving hall (see the picture below). The more recent king (Rama the IVor something) decided that he wanted to build the building to look like more modern buildings. So he sent a group of architects to Europe to study their buildings and report back. He started building the building and everyone was upset to find that it didn’t look very Thai in nature, so he altered the design so that rather than having three domes on top of the building, it has the traditional Thai pyramids. It’s a bit interesting to see…
Hot and sweaty (none of what we’ve done so far has so much as a fan…) we headed over to Wat Pho.
This wat isn’t all that spectacular other than it houses the largest reclining Buddah in the world. The Buddah is really quite big; even the Korean tourists (who Scott surprises (literally) with his language skill at every opportunity) exclaimed at how big it is. Even more incredible than its size is the fact that the entire Buddah is covered in 24 kt. Gold leaf. For a city with run-down buildings on every corner, uneven streets so that you have to watch every footsteps, and buses that look like they pre-date World War II, it is quite the extravagance.
Afterwards we caught a taxi (which aren’t quite as annoying about ripping off tourists as those in Kuala Lampur), and headed back to our hotel to rest (and cool off) before going to the Muay Thai fight that night. Muay Thai, as you probably know, is the most famous and prestigious sport in all of Thailand; even though you would never guess that from the looks of the “stadium”—it was really more of a bunch of roughly hewed planks interspersed about 12 inches apart to make a floor and benches to sit on covered by a rather rickety tin roof (it reminded us of the dock on the way to Koh Samui, see the previously uploaded picture). We were hoping to find something air conditioned, but we were disappointed to find (once again) that the Thais have a completely inexplicable aversion to air conditioning. Even in buildings that would be incredibly easy to finish off and install an ac remain devoid of anything but a few fans which languidly push the air around at unfelt distances. Nevertheless, we had a fantastic time at the events, if for no other reason that it was incredibly entertaining to watch the fanatical male (there were very few females, in fact one guard almost refused me entry until he realized I was with Scott—one more intricacy that we weren’t able to figure out from our lack of Thai) fans run around, act like little boys at Christmas, and bet frantically about the outcome of the match. After about the fourth match we were hungry and so decided to head outside the stadium to find some food (as they don’t sell any inside but let you come and go as you’d please—assuming you’re accompanied by a male?). We lucked upon a fantastic restaurant, where you select the raw food you want (like at Mongolian B-B-Q) and then cook it at your table Korean-style. Scott said it was a bit like Paul’s Indonesian hot pot, with charcoal underneath and liquid running around the edges. The food was fantastic, free from any suspicious looking germy-items, incredibly filling, and very cheap—even if everything had incredibly humorous English names, like “streaky pork” for slices of bacon. The entire meal (and we ate quite a bit) was only about 8 dollars! What we don’t understand is why the guide book doesn’t include tasty little dives like this on its listing; everything they include is hard to find, expensive, or a little shady. All in all, it was a fantastic day in Bangkok!
