One Day in Bangkok

January 27th, 2006

A day to get after it!

Starbucks is my friend. I’m sure Meg didn’t pick the hotel because I can see the Starbucks from my room, but I am thrilled anyway!

If you haven’t heard about toilets in less advanced Asian countries, let me tell you. We’ve all heard of outhouses and a few of us probably actually used one before. My Great Grandfather’s outhouse in Tennessee looked like a palatial toilet compared to the one I used today. I’m not accustomed to taking pictures in bathrooms since I feel pretty strongly that most everything in a bathroom is pretty private. Today, Meg and I took pictures though. I’ve never peed on a fish before and thought the moment should be carefully documented. Seriously, I stood over a missing plank in the pier and peed. If it wasn’t such an emergency, I probably would have waited for nicer amenities, but beggars can’t be choosers.

River Cruise – Pictures and words can never capture the next hour of my life. Meg, Kevin, and I headed down the river that runs through Bangkok in a long boat. While waiting for our opportunity to pass through the lock, we watched a woman bathing in the very same water that we just peed in. Quite honestly, I’m not sure if I’ve witnessed anything more futile. Maybe it’s just my silly Western customs, but I don’t see how putting absolutely disgusting water on your body really helps. Fascinating to see, though. The houses along the river were really shacks propped over the water. The porches were filled with some of the most beautiful flowers. I guess this is the kind of culture shock that I expected in Hong Kong. Picture a scene from Tom Sawyer with Buddhist temples thrown in occasionally. I’m so frustrated that I can’t really drawn the picture for you. With any luck, this scene will be etched into my memory forever.

Lunch for three = 3 USD = 120 THB

The Great Temple and Emerald Buddha

The life of a Buddha is a pretty cool one. They sit around looking beautiful while people worship them in a beautiful temple. I’m not sure what I expected to see at the largest Temple in Bangkok, but reality is almost always better in such a situation. The Temple grounds were exquisite and I learned so much from my immersion in the Buddhist world for a few hours. A couple of lessons – never wear you shoes in a Temple and never point your feet at a Buddha. Everyone sits in the temple with their feet to the side and under them. Oh yeah – Women aren’t allowed to speak to or hand anything directly to a monk. I thought this wouldn’t be a big deal at all, but the monks interacted with quite a few people and I would really have enjoyed talking to them. Why do I have to be a girl????

We haven’t shopped in a good 18 hours, so we decided to head to the mall where you can get all of the great knock offs. I wish I could buy knockoffs. The problem is that I will always know it’s not the real thing – even if no one else ever knows. If I could get past this, I would be the proud owner of lots of fancy jeans and purses. Oh well… maybe I will come around when we head into Mainland China. Back to the ride to the mall though – I fell asleep (like always) and the driver stopped along the way to buy fried bananas from a street vendor. I think Bananas are the primary food staple in Southern Thailand. After we found some fancy boy jeans for Kevin, we headed back to our hotel and onto our Thai Massage experience. P.S. – Kevin is going to be far fancier that Kurt and Dave when he gets back to Chapel Hill. He even reads InStyle Magazine now. OK, so he didn’t really have options, but he did squeeze in a quote later.

How does that song go? “Hurt me bad in a real good way?” That should be the slogan for Thai massage. Meg, Kevin, and I went for an hour long Thai foot massage this afternoon. The actual event was pretty painful. The second following the pain was fantastic. This was Kevin’s first foot massage and although he was a bit nervous at first, he adjusted nicely and walked out just as relaxed and out of it as Meg and I did. 1 hour of torturous pleasure = 7.50 USD

If you’re in Bangkok, please visit Lemongrass Restaurant on Sukhumvit road. You won’t regret it! Lemongrass is one of the best restaurants that I’ve encountered. For about 13 USD each (pricey in these parts of the world) Meg, Kevin, and I enjoyed a huge dinner with two new fantastic foods. Everything on this list gets a four mainly because I intend to eat them again for the rest of my time in Thailand.
Pomella Salad, Spicy Thai soup, Lemongrass chicken (no head or bones thankfully)

I can’t imagine a more perfect vacation day. I only wish more of the people that I love could be here to share this experience with me!