I met my Dad in Bangkok after leaving Egypt. He had been here a day already and had some things arranged for us, including a swanky hotel. SCORE!!
The day before while doing his own exploring he met Toy, a tuk-tuk driver (3 wheeled scooter with a covered canopy and bench seat in the back) Toy took us to some of the Temples or Wats. We first saw the Golden Buddha which is 5.5 tonnes of solid gold! The temples are all beautifully decorated with golded spires that ride op the roof lines like waves, and the front facades are decorated with intricately carved wood, gold paint, bright reds and deep sapphire blues, and have inlaid pieces of glass or tile to reflect the sun and make the whole place sparkle. Inside the Wats are the golden Buddhas which sit serenly in the back, often eyes downcast as if to look at all the offerings of lotus flowers, incense, glasses of brandy, and candles burning at its feet. Other smaller golden buddhas often surround the larger one. All of the temples have golden buddhas, some have many many many almost littering the temple grounds. They are not all solid gold, but a bronze or some alloy statue which worshipers (correct word??) will come and they can purchase a piece of gold lief to stick onto the statue. When they are all covered with enough gold they will be laqured and finished. The money will be used towards the temples or the monks.
After the Golden buddha we saw the Happy Buddha in China town. The happy buddha is happy i think because he is fat! Happy buddha is the typical round belly buddha that most think of. He is a Chinese version and there is a local Thia joke saying he is fat because the Chinese eat so much while the Thia are poor and devout! I like the fat Buddha, i like eating... ALOT!
After the temples we went to a canal river boat trip where we rode down the river that runs throuough the city. We saw a snake show where they whipped Cobras around as if they were play toys, and i came to find a whole new respect for the King Cobra which is the size of a python, but a freaking Cobra!!! Um please do not ever let me see one of those outside of a cage!
We saw the reclining Buddha (which we discovered later represents Buddha when he dies) and a million other buddhas (or so it seemed)
The second Bangkok day rocked! We went to Tiger Temple which is a Buddhist sancuary for animals. It has all sorts of boars, cattle, horses, and deer that have made their way into this sanctuary one way or another. In 1999 the first tiger cub was brought here and there are at least 12 there now.
My dad and I got to go up to full grown tigers and sit with them and have our pictures taken, and then go and play with 7 month old tiget cubs. It was not as exciting as walking with the Lions in Africa, but it defintely gave me respect about how much bigger tigers are than lions! The 7 month old tiger cubs were the same size if not bigger than the 14 month male lion cubs!
We also visited the Death Bridge cemetery which WWII buffs (you know who you are!) should know that was a bridge that linked Thailand to ship arms when the Japanese army was occupying Thialand. They used prisoners of war to build the bridge and treated them no better than the Nazi's to the Jews. POW's were worked to death and brutally treated.
That same day after a 12 hour excursion we flew up North to escape Bangkok and are now in Chaing Mai. Just like everyone i talked to about Thailand, if coming here, GET OUT OF BANGKOK. It is gross and dirty and busy... the North already after 2 days rocks!
Yesterday we went on a Trek. The day started with an Elephant trek where we rode elephants quite literally through the jungle. Everything was lush and green and full of spiderwebs that i somehow found myself covered in! EW! Fortunatley they were all abandoned.
After elephants we visited a local village where we saw a young girl weaving scarves. This paticular village is a real village. (not the tourist trap villages you got to where everyone pretends to be remote and then go into their "hut" and watch cable tv and make dinner with running water and gas stoves) Although they had electricity, 80% of the pop never goes to school, they speak their own dialect, are married at 13-14 and if their spouse dies never can remarry. It was really interesting to see.
After we hiked through rice paddys and more jungle (where i saw a spider the size of a softball--> OMG) to a beautiful waterfall.
The coolest thing for me was we finished with a bamboo raft ride down the river. I was expecting sitting on a boat and chilling out, nope, bamboo rafts are about 3 feet across and 30 feet long, held together by pieces of bicycle tires. They are manned by a driver at the front with a big piece of bamboo who pushed you off things on each side of the river, or pushed the pole down to the bottom. Because you are floating on a few pieces of bamboo when ever you go over the rapids the water splashes up all over you, but it doesn't matter because you are already soaking wet as the water comes up between the bamboo pieces. I wasn't aware that i was going to get wet, so tired in vain at first to perch myself up as best as possible. All the local guides laughed at my attempts to stay dry and within 30 seconds of the experience i realized why. There was nothing i could do but get wet and have fun. So i did.
I wasn't too concerned because i thought everyone else would be wet too..... wrong. They told my dad to pole at the back of the raft, so he stood up the whole time, dry and clean. No river mud all over him. The other people in our group were lame and didn't want to get wet so tried to stand or crouch the whole 25 minutes. They were wet, but not soaked from the waist down like me! LLAAME!!
All in all it was a great trip. We have had some wonderful Thia food, and are hoping to learn to cook some food in the next few days!
Having lots of fun exploring Thailand!
Will keep in touch!
LOVE!!!
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