Am I Corn or Kale?

On our way in we heard a CNN reporter mention that “it will be difficult to get around Bangkok this weekend.” She was, of course, referring to the “red shirt” protests mentioned on the previous entry. Although we don’t understand the nuances of Thai politics, we read enough news articles to understand that hundreds of thousands of people have been flocking in to Bangkok from all over the country for a weekend-long protest requesting the dissolution of the current Parliament and a new round of elections. What never became clear, of course, is what would happen if the government did not attend to such requests by the noon Monday deadline imposed by the red shirters (we are writing this from the train out of Bangkok, so we have no way of knowing until we reach Chiang Mai later tonight).

Armed with a far-from-detailed city map, we spent most of our Saturday on an afternoon-long stroll in search of the Hua Lampong train station to purchase our tickets in advance. Unsurprisingly, the weather here is oppressively hot (95F). Our guesstimate is that we walked for a good 8 miles total, through the touristy Khao San Rd. district to a large open area where the demonstrators were starting to gather, following the Grand Palace walls and then turning onward to a definitely non-touristy district, where I had one of those rare but valuable “wow, where am I and I’m so far from everywhere I’ve known and there is barely any room to walk in these crowded street full of vendors and good and bad smells and the vehicles here drive in the opposite side of the street I’m used to and they don’t seem to abide to traffic laws and this is awesome” epiphanies. While it is unfortunate that it was impossible to register these moments photographically, I doubt my brain will ever forget this particular feeling of overstimulation. It was remarkably hard to find a place to sit down to eat (I assume a good 80% of the meals consumed away from home in Thailand come from food stands), we eventually settled for a delightful stir-fried basil and veggies over rice/pad-see-yuh (amazing Thai noodle dish)/icea tea w/condensed milk combination that hit the spot. Just to assure myself that I was really in Thailand, I ate a (small) whole red chili pepper that happened to be on my plate and, despite the initial 10-15 seconds of “that’s not so bad” eventually had to pay the price for my eagerness. For about 15 minutes.

Exhausted from our walk, the heat, and spending the previous day packed in airplanes, we crashed early in order to refuel for our Sunday morning’s goals: the Grand Palace complex and the Wat Po (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). Despite containing the most revered Buddha image in all of Thailand (the Emerald Buddha), the former is also an unabashedly touristy site, and understandably so: if 200 years ago your king had ordered built temples and images and mansions and more temples, many of them covered in pure gold, wouldn’t it make sense to keep reaping the benefits from all that work, getting money from people who came from all over the world to see these magnificent sites? If anything, the King of Siam had some foresight.

It could be said that the Emerald Buddha is a bit like the Mona Lisa: neither can be photographed and are both surprisingly small in size but relevant nonetheless. Unlike the Mona Lisa, it sits on top of beautiful, ornate display that I should be stoned for not finding a better word for it than “pedestal.” The image is so well cared for that its golden clothes are changed from time to time. The experience of walking into that temple is nothing short of overwhelming: the walls are but one huge painting with hundreds of scenes meant to represent old tales and stories, and after a while (the same applies for the rest of the temples), you become desensitized by all the gold and wonder if such element really is all that difficult to come by. The latter point has a tinge of irony as our train cruises by the countryside, where more temples decorated in gold contrast with to the humble dwellings of rice farmers.

Wat Po was also a treat: the Reclining Buddha is absurd in size (about half the length of a soccer field, I think? I’ll wiki it when I get a chance), yet it isn’t in the main temple in the complex. To get to the latter (this will be hard to describe) we walked through what seemed like two layers of multiple Buddha images, each one slightly different than the next but all roughly in the same body position and size.

Afterwards we walked to a large open-air market in search for some more delicious Thai food. The whole food finding thing was slightly more complicated than we would have liked because we were actually at what is known as the city’s “Flower Market.” We walked back and forth a few times and settled for a restaurant outside the market, returning there in search of the glorious dessert I now know as Mango Sticky Rice. Basically, it’s sticky rice (a variety that, as the name indicates, sticks together but without the gooey consistency of overcooked rice — much the opposite, in fact) covered in sweetened coconut milk accompanied by perfectly ripe mango slices. It is ridiculous.

One thing the King of Siam may not have foreseen is that tourists may have a hard time with the “no shorts allowed when visiting temples” policy when it’s almost 100 degrees out. We decided against visiting yet another temple and started walking back to the hotel. On the way, we saw the protests were getting more intense: part of an avenue was blocked by parked vehicles; a few roads to the North, a parade of honking cars and chanting people were making themselves noticed [I‘ll try posting a short video of it on Facebook soon enough]. Partly because we were so tired, and partly because we felt it would be prudent to lay low for a bit while the city figured itself out, we got back to our safe haven and basically passed out.

We woke up a few hours later, had dinner and then headed to Khao San Rd. (which we hadn’t actually been on yet). I was excited to find out that he first Formula 1 race of the year was on, and that bars were showing it on every available TV. We sat down for a while to watch the end of the race while sipping on some strong-yet-poor-tasting Thai beer that warmed up much too quickly. I couldn’t help but notice how expensive beer and other alcohol is compared to food: here in Thailand, it is much cheaper to eat an awesome meal than to have a couple of brewskys. As far as getting your priorities straight goes, I must say I approve.

We left the hotel very early this morning to catch our 8:30 train. The city was tense due to the continuing protests and the impending deadline, and several of the main roads had been blocked off by the red shirters. Despite having dreamed last night that we got in a tuk tuk crash, we chose to get one instead of a cab to take us to the station (rationale: they are smaller and therefore could navigate through tighter traffic situations… not that I have anything against the Bangkok‘s awesome pink taxis!).

We of course survived the ride and arrived at the station more than an hour early. After a nice Thai breakfast (fried egg w/rice and pork & noodle soup), we found our train and… sat there, still at the station for about an hour, because protestors were blocking the main railway out of the city. We passed the time discussing the relative value of human life and eventually, the train rode away from Bangkok and into the North country.

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