Ten Days in Thailand
Hello Everyone,
(Warning ! Here’s another long one. Delete button is an option.)
Well, I just got back from ten days in Thailand. It was great! Not only was it super to out of Hanoi for a while but now that I’m back, I will be on a parttime basis at the school. No more Saturday classes. Weekends are free so I’ll be able to take excursions outside of Hanoi and see the countryside.
Colleen and I went to Thailand. Others went to China or Malasia or rode motorcycles around Vietnam. Everyone had a good time and had great weather only to return to Hanoi after Tet to grey clouds and drizzling rain. I’ll find out exactly what the others did and where they went because I want to do more traveling before I leave this part of the country.
But more about me. Flew to Bangkok and was surprized at what a huge, modern city it is. The skyline looks like Chicago or St. Louis. Lots and lots of tall buildings, something of which Hanoi has only a few scattered about. The ride into town was on a road similar to our interstate, four or six lanes wide. Very impressive. The man at the airport called a cab and told us the ride into town would be 900 Thai Bahts (THB). I later realized you can’t believe anyone trying to help you at the airport or someone who engages you in conversation on the street. Airport taxis ALWAYS try to overcharge you! Beware! The hotel was nice but not in the center of town as I had thought. Next morning, I wlked to the river, under the bridge and caught a river taxi. It’s a long, narrow boat that makes regulars runs to spots along the river and is the easiest way to get around. The river was full of boats, barges, river taxis, tour boats and long-tail boats (long narrow boats with a long pole out the back with a propellor on the end powered by what looked like a Ford V engine. You saw them in on of the James Bond movies.) I loved being on the river.
Headed to the Royal Palace. A “man on the street” fell into step with us and began asking questions in English. “Where are you from?” “Is this your first trip to Thailand?” We assumed he was practicing his English. Finally, unbeknownst to us, his main question, “Where are you going?” “The Royal Palace.” “Oh, unfortunately, the Royal Palace is closed today. I suggest you visit some temples.” and he took my map and started marking sites of interest on it. “You can hire a tuk-tuk to take you, but don’t pay him 200 THB. He should do it for 20THB.” And miraculously, a tuk-tuk appeared curbside. Our “man on the street” negotiated a price of 20THB for trips to three temples and we got in. Now, a tuk-tuk is about like like a golf cart with a mororcycle built onto the front. It’s open all around and built for Asians (the roof was so low I couldn’t sit up straight). It’s a three wheeled apparatus. The driver sits up front and has a stick shift on the floor but handlebars for steering. The tuk-tuk is narrow enough that has can weave in and out of traffic and he does. We went to three temples which were impressive. One was outside, a standing Buddha that was maybe sixty feet high and gold. There were always monks wandering around and people saying their prayers and offering gifts to the Buddha, flowers, incense, small money. Our tuk-tuk driver also took us to a jewelry shop and a tailor shop. The Lonely Planet Guidebook said that they get a commission for bringing people to the shops. (But it made me mad. I walked in and walked out). The third temple was the “Golden Mountain” standin high above the city on an artificial hill (Bangkok is essentially flat). The temple has a huge golden dome and offers a good view of the city. People were writing prayers for the departed or wishes for the future on little slips of gold foil looking paper and placing them into a large container. These were to be burned at Tet and their messages taken to heaven and preented to the Jade Emperor.
The next day, we, once again, started for the Royal Palace. We got off the river taxi at the Palace. We were inundated by people trying to sell us something. We tried to make our way through the crowd and one guy said,”where are you going?” “The Royal Palace.” “Oh, sorry, it’s closed until 2 o’clock. You should go to the Half Moon Temple.” “Well, we’ll just check and he directed down a street away from the entrance to the palace. We eventually found our way to the entrance and people were streaming in and out.
The Palace grounds are divided into two main parts. The Royal Palace area where the King greets dignitaries and State functions are held and the area surrounding the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the more ornate and interesting part. In order to enter the Temple area, you have to be dressed properly, no shorts, tank tops, exposed shoulders. They were doing a lively business at the entrance selling (or renting, I don’t know which) sarongs to the women and brightly colored pants to the men. Trying to create a fashion ensemble was not a perogative. Some interesting outfits resulted.
You enter the area surrounding the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Think “Anna and the King of Siam”. It is actually a complex of beautiful, ornate buildings, each more beautiful and interesting than the last. Some are covered with mosaics, some with ceramics, some are painted. All are incredible. It reminded me of the temples of Egypt in that every square inch, fllor to ceiling and outside, is covered ith some decoration. There is not a single spot that is left untouched. And there are acres of building, each having some significance, surrrounded by tourists or followers praying to the various Buddhas. I know almost nothin about the Buddhist reliogion thus I don’t understand where the people are supposed to be praying but it seems that all the images of the Buddha are sacred and drawn some followers. The Emerald Buddha (actually, it’s made of jade) is about three feet high, resting on an elevated alter surrounded by other buddhas of gold. no pictures are allowed and you must remove your shoes before entering. (This is true of all temples). Only pictures, which I will send along soon can show the beuty of the place and honestly, they won’t do it justice.
The Royal Palace is stately but not as ornate. It would rival the palaces in Europe. In fact, I prefer it to Versailles. Versailles seems to just want to show off the opulence of Louis XIV. This Palace is not as ornate, as rococco, as Versailles but is beautiful and seems to be designed around a more useful purpose.
The next day, we flew up to Chiang Mai in the north. It’s an ancient city and used to be very powerful. It’s much smaller tha n Bangkok but has almost as many temples. The old city was surrounded by walls and a broad moat. Most of the old city gates are still standing and portions of the walls but the moat is still there forming a barrier to entry except through the gates. It’s a nice town, a walking town, and has a bookstore with “the largest selection of English language books in southeast Asia.” Yes, I went there. The first night, hoping to see some traditional dancing, we went to Simon’s Palace. Don’t go! It turned out to be a Las Vegas type show with elaborate costumes, bright lights and loud music. The singing was ok but the choreography was terrible and the dancers seemed to ahve learned the steps by rote. There was no emotion to the dancing. “OK, my hand goes out, then up, I turn around, then twist…. ” Bad! It might have been ok if they had billed it as a parody of a Las Vegas show. Some of the girls ended up in g-strings and pasties. The worst part was that as you left the theatre, and I was anxious to get away, the performers had formed a semi-circle out front are tried to get the patrons to have their pictures made with them. I tried to hold back and finally just pushed my way through. First time I didn’t want to be around half dressed women.
We took an all day tour outside the city and it was great! Went first to a hill village. A pretty good hike up a mountain that included crossing a swinging bamboo bridge over a creek. Tarzan, Indiana Jones and me. Bought little elephants for my granddaughters. The village was very primitive. Elevated huts with bamboo walls and dried leaves for the roofs. Chickens and pigs and little children played in the dirt.
Next, we went bamboo rafting. They rafts were twenty five to thirty feet long and about four feet wide, made of six to eight long bamboo poles tied together. The river/creek was not very wide and never very deep. There were four of us plus a guide who asked if I would like to pole the back of the boat, which I did, of course. Actually, he did all the work and I just fended us off a few rocks. I stood the entire trip and only had one brief moment early in the trip when I was almost swept off the raft by a low hanging limb. Luckily, due to my amazing agility and incredible strenghth I was able to maintain control and save the other members of the expedition from being tosse into the shark infested waters. Make that piranha infested. I enjoyed it immensely. We went through some small rapids. The rapids were not the problem. The trick was to maneuver this long raft between the boulders in the water and our guide did a marvelous job.
We had lunch in a crude, roadside restaurant but the food was good, rice and anything that goes with it.
Next was the elephant ride. Some of the elephants were huge, majestic, making their riders look small. Ours was somewhat smaller and we were chosen to ride it because we were lighter than the two overweight isters in our group. But there was a benefit. Ours had a baby about four feet tall which tagged along close to Mama during the trip. We sat on a wood bench in a metal frame which was padded with several thick blankets to protect the elephants back. No protection was given to our backsides.The guide put a bar across in front of us like you have on a roller coaster. And we were off! We had bought bananas to feed the elephant along the ride and he immediately reached back with has trunk hoping to be fed. We followed a well worn path through the jungle. There were several stops along the way where you could buy more bananas from an elevated stand designed to deal with people atop the elephants. We had to ration our bananas because we didn’t have the right cash with us. Several times, make that often, during the trip our elephant had to clear his trunk. It was never pointed at us over his head but was always hanging in front of him. However, the tip of his trunk must have been pointed upward as we were frequently sprayed by what we chose to believe were chunks of banana. Not the best part of the trip. The best part was when we got to the river/creek and watched the baby elephant roll in the water and rub up against the muddy bank and the wash off again. He was really cute. All the elephants considered the river as their bathroom and all relieved themselves. Huge, round, green balls of manure. An elephants penis is about the size of a firehose and puts out as much liquid. I was glad that our rafting trip had been upstream.
We went to another village where the primarily made woven goods. Beautiful material with beautiful designs made on home made looms.
Our final stop was a waterfall in the jungle. Only about twenty five feet high but with a lovely, deep pool beneath. I couldn’t resist going for a swim. The water was cold and refreshing and I rode back to Chiang Mai in wet shorts.
That night, we went to a real traditional dance show, which included a meal. We ate sitting on the floor which is difficult for me since my knees don’t bend so well. Not sure what we ate, except for the rice, but it was very good. There were seven or eight dances performed, very formal and stylized, dances you would expect to see performed before the King and dignitaries. Beautiful women in beautiful costumes. Slow, graceful movements, probably ritualized with some underlying meaning. The first was the fingernail dance. Each dancer had four inch gold fingernails on each finger. Each dance had a name but I didn’t get the others. Then we went outside to a small amphitheatre where we saw dances performed by members of the hill tribe villages. These were very simple, primitive dances designs to evoke rain or insure a good harvest. Each had a definite purpose and each village had their own native costume. Nothing as interesting or as lively as the dances I had seen in the Czech Republic but very interesting.
Then we headed down south to the Ko Phi Phi Islands near Phuket. This is an area that was hit by the Sunami a couple of years ago. It’s a tropical paradise. Blue sky, sunshine, clear water. My kind of place. There are two Phi Phi Islands. Phi Phi Don which is inhabited and Phi Phi Ley which is not. We stayed in a bungalow on Don. The only road is a paved path about eight feet wide, large enough for the carts that carry your luggage from the boat to the hotel. We swam in the Andaman Sea, lay on the beach, got some sun, read a lot, ate in restaurants next to the water and relaxed. Went on a half day boat trip. Monkey Beach (these monkeys were nicer than the others and came up to be fed), fantastic snorkeling (beautiful fish and coral), kayaking, watching the sunset. One stop was Phi Phi Ley which is the island where the movie “The Beach” was filmed. It has a beautiful bay with crystal clear water.
Thailand is more prosperous than Vietnam. The people are a little taller and a little heavier. This could be because they have more food or that they have McDonalds. The airports in Thailand all had Burger King and Duncan Donuts. Bangkok airport could have been anywhere in the world. It is brand new and has everything. It is effecient but not attractice, reminded me of a big cage made of glass and metal bars.
Then it was back to Hanoi. Greeted by rain and it has rained every day since. BUT I don’t have to work on weekends and my hours are reduced. I wouldn’t mind working more hours, just not on weekends.
So Im back at it. That’s my news. What’s yours?
Love to all,
Tom
higgiro39