On our first day in Bangkok, that stupid song "One night in Bangkok" kept playing in my head. I thought maybe Bangkok would look something like Vietnam War-era Saigon (from what I've seen in movies), but it's a pretty modern Asian city. The cabs are all metered and are very comfy and air-conditioned. Shock of shocks. Bookstores are good, restaurants serve up healthy food, stores selling lots of goods, sidewalks that a person can walk on, trashcans on the street, trash collection done every morning...

Unfortunately it's so incredibly HOT here. Hot, humid, windless. And this is the tail end of the cold season.

I can't generalize to the rest of the country, but Bangkok takes tourism pretty seriously. There are well-maintained historical markers throughout the city, describing sites, even bridges have historical markers. At one temple, I noticed a sign in English and Thai that stated "Merchants are requested not to irritate the tourists; to buy goods, etc." It is possible to walk around shops here without getting chased down the street, to walk around restaurants without guys throwing themselves at you to get you to "just looking at menu!!!". Probably the only hassle we get is from the folks selling teeny bottles of water outside major sites. Thanks to metered taxis, it is easy to move around the city without getting into a screaming match a la India and Egypt. Jason says he is very glad we went India to Thailand instead of the other way around, because he probably would have hated India. hee, hee.

We are staying at a hotel near the legendary Khao San road. I thought I would hate Khao San, but it's very pleasant. Unlike traveler's ghettos in India. In India, all sorts of unsavory characters would attach themselves to the backpacker areas - drug dealers, annoying rickshaw drivers, extremely aggressive beggars, annoying hotel touts, annoying restaurant touts. In other words, lots of annoying people. Instead, Khao San just seems like a place that caters to foreign tourists. Bland food, Israeli restaurants, bars and hippie wear. Lots of hippie wear. Also, Khao San has the best used bookstores in the world that I have seen so far. The prices are not good, but the selection is very good.

I like to leave the sightseeing blog entries to Jason, but he's gone to have another massage, so I'll try my hand at this.

Yesterday, we decided to go on a walking tour of the surrounding area. There was a bit of cloud cover, so it wasn't complete madness. We visited Wat Arun first. This is an interesting Khmer style (Khmer style seems to mean "has phallic tower structures") covered with bits of broken porcelain. Gave me some ideas for bathroom decorations, as the porcelain decoration looks exactly like colorful bathroom tiling. We proceeded to Wat Suthat, stopping at the City Pillar to see some traditional dance.

At the "City Pillar" there was no dancing going on, unfortunately, but it was still interesting. Thais believe that when a city is established, you need to erect a pillar to absorb the spirits. I believe I'm stating this correctly. I wish I understood this more, but about twenty people were kneeling in front of two pillars (one for Bangkok, one for the neighborhood), stuffing money into donation boxes, praying, offering lotus flowers and lighting joss sticks.

There were a couple of other subshrines in the area, some with gold-leaf Buddhas. My favorite aspect of Buddhism is merit-making. The charming gold-leaf Buddha statues are an example of this. Many temple areas have designated gold-leaf Buddhas. To obtain merit, folks buy squares of beaten gold leaf and apply to these Buddhas. (gold leaf costs no more than fifty cents) From what I can see, people are very careful to not let their fingers touch the gold leaf. As a result, there are bits of gold leaves laying and flying about in the breeze. In Thailand, folks also leave cooked food as offering. At the Wat Pho, a person left an entire roasted duck, still in it's plastic bag, with two lit joss sticks stuck in the duck's thigh.

By the time we made it to Wat Suthat, my mind was mostly concerned with finding some AC comfort. We had walked for 20 minutes and I was completely drenched in sweat. About all I can remember of this wat is some bronze horses outside. My thighs were starting to cramp. Not satisfied, after touring Wat Suthat we continued to the Golden Mount to climb a hill in the blazing heat. Many other mad tourists joined us in the climb up the Golden Mount. After that, we walked to yet another Wat. Jason wanted to buy an amulet at the famed amulet market here. I remember that there were a lot of cats at this temple. The murals on the inside wall are very famous here, but I gave them a pretty cursory look over before I sat down in the shade to watch some cat antics. After this, we recovered at McDonald's, which has powerful AC. Another day in the life of a backpacker couple in Bangkok!