Where to start? Our arrival. We arrived in Bangkok Friday night around 11pm. After walking off the plane, the first thing we noticed was the 'international smell'. This isn't a negative thing - rather, its frequently a combination of the heat, the humidity and the country. I wonder if America smells differently too for a foreigner at first?
Customs and immigration was fast. The airport was one of the nicest I had ever seen. Greg and Anthony got on their knees and kissed the dirty sidewalk that thousands of people walk on daily - symbolic of kissing Thai soil. However, I must add that I do think it would have been much cleaner to have actually kissed Thai dirt! :)
The ride to our hotel was long yet short. I could see all the delegates looking at everything and soaking it all up. The thing I noticed most was boy, the guidebooks were not kidding when they said that Thais really look up to the royal family. The streets, bouldevards and everywhere is just plastered with pictures of the King and Queen. Bouldvards were painted yellow with 15-20 feet tall framed pictures of the royals.
Even some streets had old black and white pitures of, what I presume to be, royalty signing papers or shaking hands or engaging in political work. As if they emphasize and want to keep a record of their work. It would be like having a huge picture of President Bush hanging in every school or pictures on our streets of Bush signing acts into law or shaking hands or kissing babies' cheeks. '
Since most of us slept on the plane, we were wide awake when we got to the hotel. After assigning rooms (the Team Leaders - Greg, Anthony, and I are roomies and Alim & Adrienne are just around the corner from us) to everyone all except one of us went to one of Alim's favorite restaurants. This is his fifth visit to Thailand so he knows the area pretty good! Khao San road was hopping even at 3am. There are 7-11s everywhere! The hotel location reminded me of where both teams stayed at in Delhi but the name of the street fails me at the moment. (Help me out here Monsoon Riders and Mumbai Moos!) I remember Sarah and Tamer remarking that the place looked like Khao San road.
I had watermelon juice, pad thai and a coke. By the time we got back we only had enough time to nap for a hour before meeting at 7:45 for the amazing race. Since us wonderful team leaders procrastinated on finishing the amazing race, we were unable to sleep due to needing to finish preparations.
We weren't too tired anyways so it was all good. Come 7:30, we ate the hotel's complimentary breakfast (I had banana pancakes) and left to begin our amazing race. The cooridor leading from the hotel to khao san road smelled so much better (or we just got used to it). The night before it smelled like pee, beer, sweat, and body odors. How romantic.
While the delegates were exchanging money they began to get harrassed by tuk tuk drivers and shop keepers. I felt bad for them but at the same time, its all part of their learning process and we all went through that while travelling.
We walked to the Chao Phrya river and took a boat to the Grand Palace. Words cannot describe this place, just imagine everything made of gold with pretty gems, tiles, mosiacs and incredible attention to detail as well as intricate art work covering every square inch of this palace.
We visited the temple of the emerald buddha (which is actually green jade). The place was a great room with wooden beams covered in red murals depicting Thai history. There was a grand golden pyramid inside with so much painstaking attention to detail that it overwhelmed me to even look at one corner of the pyramid. I felt stupid because we all took our shoes off, walked inside and sat down with our feet facing away from the Buddha and there was a man ushering everyone inside to be seated. I saw the domineering pyramid but also saw a limestone stage of sorts so I thought that once the man seated everyone, they would bring out the emerald buddha and we would all ooh and ahh over it.
Imagine my surprise when people started getting up tp leave. "Wait!" I said to Alim, "where's the emerald buddha?!" He pointed to the very top of the pyramid where there was a gold box with glass walls and inside of that was the emerald buddha. I had to squint to see it and even then it was like trying to see my cat's facial expression from down the block of my home.
However, once we visited the Wat Po or the reclining buddha (wat is Thai for temple) I was simply amazed. It is 46 meters long and 15 meters tall) which translates to about 153 feet long and 50 feet tall. We all had to crane our neclks to see it and its made out of gold (I don't know if its real or not). It gave me chills, just because its so big, its such an important part of Thai religion and culture, and it was a holy place too. The reclining buddha represents the passing of buddha into nirvana.
We also visited Wat In with a large standing image of buddha and Wat Arun, the temple of the dawn. We couldn't stay for long at both places. My team consisted of Rachel, Erin, and Mia. We mixed up the teams for the amazing race and I had a lot of fun with them. I couldn't help them as iw as just there to watch, make sure everything went smoothly, etc. When we met up for dinner at the Mango tree, everyone had funny stories to share and it was great.
All in all, it was a great day. Eveyrone was just exhausted from the heat, jet lag, and the excitement no doubt. I wish we had more time to explore Bangkok. But I'm happy for the taste we got and I loved riding the river boat.
That's all for now, look for an update on day two soon!
KT
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
No comments:
Post a Comment