Grand Palace; or, I'm too sexy for my ticket

The Grand Palace is impressive. That's certainly true. The one mark against it for us as visitors is that it's so difficult to get in - we saw tens of tourists being turned away for unsuitable dress; this is totally understandable when there's a temple involved and people are wearing hot pants, but people wearing white were being refused on the grounds that it could be see-through, even when it clearly wasn't, and anyone with the tiniest bit of ankle peeking through was refused entry. Despite having visited temples in considerately conservative dress all day, Tallulah was turned away due to her loose morals and three-quarter-length trousers and instead of enduring multiple trips to the sarong rental place she decided to donate her ticket to a delighted passing Mexican.

What it is, of course, is a measure of how much the Thais revere their monarchy, and their current king especially, who after 66 years on the throne is the longest-reigning monarch in the world. We went to the mind-blowingly elaborate show Siam Niramit, which was great fun (and where we met our first elephant) and before the performance we were asked to stand for the national anthem. We went to the cinema in the ultra-modern Siam Paragon shopping centre and we stood for the national anthem before the film. In both At 6pm in many public places the national anthem is played and people stand respectfully. However, there is also a great mutual affection between people and king, with pictures lovingly displayed all over Thailand in beautiful frames with flowers and shiny things. We saw these as we took the train down through a number of towns and, without fail, at some point we would pass at least one huge portrait of the king with "LONG LIVE THE KING" written below in Thai and, often, in English. In our tour minibus, above the driver's head where we have often seen Buddha images displayed, our driver had a faded and well-worn portrait of the king.

The most impressive part of the complex, in my opinion, is the area around the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (actually jade - it was thought to be emerald when its longstanding stucco coating chipped away and in a fit of excitement someone mistook the green stuff for the luxury option), and thankfully Tallulah got a decent view of these bits from the grand entrance where she sat writing postcards while Trixie did a swift tour of the interior.

The downside of being suitably dressed is that one is inclined to swelter in the July heat of Bangkok, so the tour also involved the consumption of an entire litre of water purchased just outside.

Gorgeous!

Wat Arun

The temple of Wat Arun looks impressive from the river, but it also looks like a greying concrete monument. 

Up close, you can see the vibrant colours of the inlaid porcelain – donated, so covered in all sorts of domestic crockery patterns cut into floral shapes. 

While it has just as many tourists as some of the other temples, there’s something very calm and laid-back in the atmosphere that’s really very appealing. We saw a monk showing a young family around and encouraging them to pose while he took pictures for them. Overhead, there were tinkling brass bells ringing from the tops of the five prangs that form the centre of the temple complex. Tallulah braved the near-vertical steps to climb the central tower and was rewarded with fantastic views.

Trixie, meanwhile, searched in vain for shade from the noonday sun all around the temple complex.

In Bangkok at twelve o’ clock they foam at the mouth and run

But mad dogs and Englishmen [and two daft Scots] go out in the midday sun

Thais and their Tuk-tuks

The locals are friendly. A smile seems to go a long way and the Thais are persistent but not overly pushy salespeople. They seem to have a great sense of humour and are generally polite and deferential to others. An older woman gave me her seat on the boat on the very last trip and insisted that I sit in it. The exception was the harried attendant on our boat, whom we have twice encountered, who seemed exasperated by life and not filled with the joys of job satisfaction. Regardless, one of our enduring memories of Bangkok will be the shaking of the coin holder that the boat conductors use to sell tickets, along with our lady’s cries of, “INSIDE!” and the whistling of instructions to the driver as the boats stop at each pier.

 

Wat Arun lies just across the river from Wat Pho. We should have taken the cross-river ferry there from pier 8, at Wat Pho, but we made a mistake and hopped on the ferry one stop too soon so we found ourselves on the trickier side of the river for transport, with no hope of walking all the way to the temple. In an uncharacteristically efficient manner, I hailed a taxi and we jumped in to discover ourselves with a small problem in the sense that the driver could not understand our atonal intonation of “Wat Arun”. Tallulah was quick-thinking and showed him the map in the guidebook, only to realise later that as it was annotated in English it probably wouldn’t help much. He thought about it for a minute and asked, “Wat Arun?” It was pleasant just to sit in an air-conditioned taxi for the couple of kilometres – or, as it is known in Bangkok, couple of hours.

I exaggerate, but the traffic seems horrendous. As I understand it, locals see public transport as somewhat demeaning, so many people would prefer to sit in their own cars – often very expensive – than be caught dead on the Skytrain. As a result our Skytrain journey was very pleasant and was like riding in a fridge! A very empty fridge where every single passenger got a seat – certainly not something we ever saw happen on the boat.

Our attempts to get back to the hotel from Siam Square were repeated and abortive. We completed a circuit of the Siam Paragon mall trying to find a taxi, to find two in a row who did not know how to get to our hotel, even with the directions card, and one who said, “Oh, it’s very far from here” in a manner which implied that we would never find anyone to take us. Just when I was beginning to imagine that we would have to bed down in the car park, Tallulah suggested grabbing a passing tuk-tuk, and we entirely failed to bargain well in the relief that someone would take us home!

I wouldn’t say we nearly died in that tuk-tuk – it was relatively incident free – but the ride had a quality that had Tallulah having vivid flashes of our inevitable bloody deaths by passing bus and me composing the headlines: nothing as exciting as “Brit beheaded in freak tuk-tuk tragedy” but more along the lines of “Student dies in traffic accident” – mundane. Though Tallulah did suggest that the tabloids might go for something along the lines of “Tut-tut, tuk-tuk.” With a picture of us photoshopped giving the thumbs down. When we were crossing the lobby we admitted that our legs were like jelly.

Wat Pho

Amazingly, after our first full day, it wasn’t too hot outside at dusk, even after a scorching day. There was a brief rain shower but we missed it when we were eating. Coming back up the river we headed towards bright, backlit fluffy clouds while behind us was a gloriously moody dark grey, highlighting the temples rising from the riverside.

Next we made for those temples – down the river to Wat Pho. It was spectacular. The colours and patterns are so vivid that it is well worth seeing the temple in 3D. They even have a free bottle of water for every visitor. The reclining Buddha is massive (at forty metres long and fifteen metres high, it's the biggest in the world) and an awe-inspiring sight, even if the faithful do their real worship elsewhere while the tourists file through the famous sanctuary with shoes in a bag.

Wandering was the best part, as the temple complex was extensive and fairly quiet away from the main sights. I knew these temples had some golden decorations on the roof; what I didn’t realise is that they had a mirrorball quality. 

Some pictures:

Where are you going?

Suvarnabhumi airport is really pleasant – gold statues and decoration with flowers everywhere. Only downside was having to hunt for landing cards as British Airways had not brought enough on the plane! Silly.

Immediately accosted by people offering us tours, transfers and every tourist amenity you can think of. Everyone, I think, sees us as walking dollar signs (not unreasonably, considering our per-person budget for this trip is a fairly large proportion of the average annual income of a civil servant in Thailand) as everyone wants to take us on a tour. The hotel sent the car for us despite me saying we didn’t want a transfer so, lo and behold, the driver phoned our room to ask if we wanted a tour! And then every time we passed him at the front door he wanted to take us somewhere… The bellman also kept asking us if we have plans and if we wanted a tour. Everywhere we hear the call, "Where are you going?" It’s a funny extension of the fact that Thais ask people where they’re going in the same way as we ask “how are you doing?” or the Chinese ask “have you eaten yet?” – to say hello. In the end we took our dedicated driver up on the offer to drive us to the train station on our last day, which worked out well for all of us.

When we arrived we were tired but not shattered due to having dozed on the plane pretty effectively. It was a surprisingly painless flight. We ate in the hotel restaurant which was perfectly pleasant and not too expensive. Though my glass noodle soup with minced pork didn’t actually have any glass noodles in it. I think they substituted tofu…

Eventually found the boat pier and worked out how it all works. Monks on board so the ticket collector shooed everyone down the boat and arranged a buffer of male passengers around them. Nice way to get around and it took a slight edge off the 34 degree heat. Slight. The Chao Phraya river is brown with silt, but we still noticed the odd bit of litter spoiling the picturesque. The large dead fish floating past was not a highlight.

We alighted at Chinatown for a good wander. Many shrimp and fish sauce cooking smells, not to the delight of Tallulah, combined with hot and crowded alleys – an assault on the senses! But I think we were prepared for Bangkok to be a bit overwhelming so we’re not really suffering too badly from culture shock. Though I was melting in the heat – waiting for the boat my eyebrows were dripping.

Nice meal in an air-conditioned (our first priority) Chinese restaurant called “Texas Suki”! Huge menu with pictures, which was helpful, and I got to try some pork buns! Glass noodles in the veggie spring rolls – maybe that’s where the ones from my soup ended up.

We have discovered the wonderful cheapness of 7-Eleven water and I thought it would be a good idea to stock up with six litres, forgetting of course that I would have to carry them. So slogged back to the hotel, weak and heavy laden. Must remember to drink!

There are so many beautiful buildings, even the most routine ones. We passed a school in Chinatown with a spectacular dragon-adorned gate in brilliant colours. 

From the river we can appreciate the melding of old and new, with ultra-modern but pretty hotel skyscrapers next to old wooden stilt houses on the canals. The boats are brightly coloured and covered in flower garlands. From our balcony we can see a vast number of skyscrapers, all lit up at night. This is a megalopolis.

The Sebastian Chronicles: Hitting the Road

Sebastian again.

Things have taken a sinister turn. Settled into case for flight but so far there has been no movement and I have been in here all night.

Trixie promises we're leaving in twenty minutes. See you in Bangkok. I hope

It's dark in here.

Hello????