second time around

Back from Phuget and I stayed at my $70 per night five star hotel. It is a wonderful place, spacious and high end. At first I was thinking this might have been a bad choice for a place to stay in that it is in the middle of nowhere, near the airport. I asked at the desk about where I could walk to to get some things and they told me there is nowhere near here. So I set off toward the “mall” which is about 3 km away. On the way I realized there are no english signs around here, and found a great bustling Thai cross-street filled with tiny hole in the wall shops and food vendors on the sidewalk. Some of them looked and smelled great, others looked and smelled like I could have scraped it off my shoe. I chose a deep fried chicken and caramelized onions for 2 USD (the tourist price I am sure). People are friendly and nice, though I got a few stares in this neighborhood. It is a half hour cab ride to downtown and the tourist spots, cost me $14 (that is roundtrip!) The first day I saw the Grand Palace and Wat Po Temple, had a Tuk-Tuk ride to several other temples, climbed the golden mount for sunset and ended up walking around the Democracy Monument while there was a large gathering of “red shirts” protesting the government. I totally forgot and wore shorts downtown as it is hot here, but fortunately they have long pants you can borrow for free (with a deposit of course) to meet the dress code for the Palace area. The buildings are spectacular, and the emerald Buddha was very nice to see. At Wat Po I enjoyed seeing the reclining Buddha which I had seen back in 1973. It is 143 feet long and 50 feet high. The bottoms of the feet are covered in Mother of Pearl showing the 108 auspicious symbols of Buddha and beside it are bronze bowls indicating the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha.

The next day I got a driver who took me 100 km out of Bangkok to the Damnoen Saduak which is the original “floating market” of Thailand. It is in an area crisscrossed with canals and they have shallow long boats that they use to sell their wares. Nowadays it is more of a tourist gig than the locals doing market, but it was fun to see and do anyway. Although I am not a shopper, and it gets old with the constant come on to buy trinkets. It is one of those “must see” things they talk about. Back to the city and the afternoon in the History Museum to get a bit of a handle on the Thai people and then Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn). Some kind of seriously steep stairs up the side of that one, but a great view of the city.

The next day I flew to Siem Reap in Cambodia. That is the location of Angkor Wat (city temple). That is the name for one of the temples found covered by the jungle and in ruins in the area. The much larger and I thought prettier site nearby is Angkor Thom (Great City) for the next two and a half days I toured the temples with a wonderful guide Rida who filled my head with names and dates, stories and legends, the religious and the mundane of the place. I also had my own driver Mr. Juk, so we were able to cover a lot of ground. The whole experience was tremendous. The early temples were built in the 10th century and are over a thousand years old! They are mostly made in brick, with sandstone for lintels and carvings. The later temples built by King Jayavarman VII in the 13th century were mostly stone. Lava stone for foundations and sandstone for the building walls, roof and bridges. Hauled from the mountains 50 km away by elephant. Estimates are that Angkor Thom had close to a million people living there in the 12th century. The Khmer (Cambodian) people created a huge reservoir and channeling canal system to control the water from the monsoons. This way they had less flooding in heavy rains and water available during droughts, and that meant good crops all the time. They had to feed a huge number of workers to build the places.

The temples are enormous and have carvings all over them. Some of the statues and reliefs are giant and some are extremely tiny and delicate. Over the years the temples went from Hindu to Buddhist and the carvings reflect that. Many of the temples have both Hindu stories and Statues of Buddha. They have been for a long time and will continue for a long time to renovate and repair the temples. Between the ages of time, the trees and plants prying the stones apart and various enemies and looters trashing the place, many temples are in pretty rough shape. They number the stones, and take them down and rebuild the walls, roofs, and walkways with the correct stones. Where they have collapsed it is one insane jigsaw puzzle.

Definitely one of the Bucket List places. It is a wonderful insight into the nature of people and what can be accomplished with time and effort. Not only the original building of it, but the reconstruction as well. I thoroughly enjoyed my tour to Siem Reap, the people and the food and the sights. I booked through a Thai company, so they put me in their usual spots for lunch and dinner and such. Turned out they were a little crowded, around 200 tourists at what was a great buffet lunch. You could find me though, I was THE white guy. A few of the dishes had labels and some of those were even in english, but mostly it was take some and try it. It was all very good and not too spicy for my delicate american insides. Another day living the dream!

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.