Once again, here we are on Thursday and I have yet to post about the events of last weekend. I could use the excuse that I’ve been working a lot, but last night I went out Karaokeing (more on this in future posting), so the work thing doesn’t really jive. I’m going to chalk it up to my rediscovery of Super Mario, which is a great way to consume your evening when you’re not karaokeing. I already have 91 power stars. Yay me.
Anyway, last Saturday took us to three of Bangkok’s most famous temples, as well as the two major residences of the royal family. We started our day at Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, which resembles a concrete Eiffel Tour, albeit with a Khmer twist. The coolest part about Wat Arun is that it’s decorated completely with broken shards of Chinese porcelain arranged artistically, like this. (Note: a picture was supposed to go here. The internet hates me).
After taking a ferry back across the Chao Praya river, we visited Wat Pho, pronounced “Poe” (like Edgar Allen, or the red teletubbie if you prefer). This is the site of the famous reclining Buddha, a massive gold-plated bronze statue depicting the Buddha’s final moments in his earthly state. Let me first say that this monument is on the official list of “Locations to Which Pictures Do Not Do Justice”. This thing is big. Really big. If I were a better writer I’d paint a nuanced picture of its majesty with the English language, but I’m not, so I guess we’ll just have to go with “really big”. Although pictures really don’t capture it, I tried my best to get one (they encourage photography, don’t worry). I did, however, have to fight my way through the entire Indian subcontinent that decided to visit the same day we did. I think I managed to snap a couple decent ones.
Next we took a short ride over to Wat Phra Kaeo and the Grand Palace. This is the “National Temple” of sorts, which is connected to the royal residence. Not much to discuss here, except that the palace guards are under the same no talking/laughing/emotion/movement restriction as the guards at Buckingham palace, making a photoshoot a no-brainer. This never gets old.
On Sunday, we headed to Jatujak Market (known as simply JJ market to the in-crowd), the largest open air market in the world. This is not an evcnt for the claustrophobic, or anyone with olfactory inhibitions. Walking around, I felt like a rat lost in a giant smelly maze, a maze with Folex watches and elephants made out of coconuts. Again, there’s not much else I can say beyond that, except that I bought lots of cool stuff and just tried not to get lost. It didn’t help that I was still recovering from the night before, when I’d purchased a bag of mysterious pork products from a nice lady on a street corner. I ate said pork, which soon after tried to eat its way back out. I survived, and I’m just now getting back to gastric equilibrium. After JJ, it was back to work. So far, the work week has been more interesting than most, but that will have to wait for next post.
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