I left off at a weird place. I’ve been home a week and still feel cloudy.

Anyway:
Woke up the next day around 7am – after waking up several times during the night. We got ready, got breakfast and walked up to the Express boats to go to the Grand Palace and Wat Pho.

We had some time to kill waiting for the boat and got a neat view of the Rama VIII bridge:

Wat Pho is where the Reclining Buddha resides. Its’ smile alone is about 14 feet. It’s all plaster in gold coating, has 108 images on its feet in mother of pearl showing the lakshanas – helps distinguish who is the true Buddha. This position is the Buddha entering Nirvana. Behind the Reclining Buddha are 108 bowls where people were dropping money into – a sign of good luck. Aside from the building housing the Reclining Buddha there are 99 chedis. Every temple is highly decorated with tiling/gold/glass and every statue is detailed with bright paint and/or carved out expressions. The murals i believe are painted onto the walls like a fresco thing – and seem to be under constant repair. It’s so cool but a lot to take in visually. I felt like we were getting blinded with it all. It was also hot – of course- and that took its toll on us after a while but I wanted to see it all. However, from the map it looks like we missed a chunk of Wat Pho. We did see a cat sleeping on a statue- at its feet and it looked very cute. J took a pic of it. Sitting along a wall I was near a pile of red ants and some other tourists told me to be careful. I don’t know much about red ants but they did look evil.

After we saw the Reclining Buddha and walked around a bit we made our way to the Grand Palace by following some other tourists who walked REALLY REALLY slow. That was also a huge amount of eye candy. I think we saw about 60% of the stuff here but we were slowly dying from the heat and humidity so we had to retreat to a store outside of the palace where we sat in front of the AC and drank waters slowly. I don’t think I’ve sweated that much in my life.

tbc…

On Thursday May 31 at 9:30am Poeks and I jumped into a car and went to JFK. Our plane left at 12:40pm (give or take a few min) and we were in the last row, in the middle aisle in big pink and purple seats. Thai Airways has colorful seats and purple blankets, pillows, and purple printouts about their menu.

The food tray and plates are red, the airline peeps wear bright colors of yellow or green, pink and purple, red and white, etc etc. Actually their uniforms were one of the nicer looking ones I’ve seen for an airline.

Our flight was filled and I wasn’t sure how I’d amuse myself for 17 hours. We rode one of those big airbus 737 planes… next to Jen was this girl who kept sleeping under her blanket and was wrapped up in a sweatshirt, long pants, and the blanket over her… apparently she was cold. It wasn’t THAT cold on the plane. It was sort of odd – when we were given things to drink or eat she’d come out of the blanket like a bear from a cave and looked more and more disheveled each time. At one point she was sleeping with her head on the seat and her legs on the floor, in a kneeling position. We slept some and watched tv, slept, watched tv, went numb, walked about, ate, slept, tv… you get the picture.

We landed in Thailand around 4pm on June 1st and had a cigarette, got a little buzzed from it and jumped into a cab. Our first place- a guesthouse in Banglamphu- an area that seems to have a lot of travelers who are of the backpacking mentality, lots of street vendors, and lots of random places to sit, drink, eat, and watch the world go by. It reminded me of hanging in the village- but a tropical village where everything is open air, the streets are thinner, the vendors and cars and scooters and foot traffic are share the same road without a “sidewalk” and you can smell charcoal burning 24/7.

So imagine a street where it’s wide enough for 2 cars, but you have vendors on both sides, people walking around, and cars/scooters/tuk tuks coming at you from both directions. Basically you walk along the edges but it’s tight. We took a walk that night and got some water, ate foods, and decided what to do for the next day. I think we fell asleep around 11pm. Our room had a queen bed, tiled floors, a little vanity area, a safe, and a bathroom. The bathroom was cool- the shower was part of the floor, only a curtain – so the drain was directly into the floor… no stepping over a ledge or a tub. This makes good sense to me. The sink and toilet were out of reach of getting wet from the shower head and it sort of guarantees that your floor will be “clean” – however, don’t walk into the bathroom with socks on shortly after showering, it’s a bummer.