The City of Angels

Move over Los Angeles, Bangkok is the true city of angels. Apparently Bangkok was only adopted because the original name of the city was far too long to be of any practical use. The shortened version of the original city name, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, is a literal translation of 'city of angles'. This was taught to me by my awesome tour guide Pu. She can recite the full name but it will take about 30 seconds to get it all out. This is the story of our adventure.

The day started at 9am when she met me at my hotel. We walked to the nearest sky train station and proceeded to go to a canal taxi. These are quite popular with the locals because it is far faster than taking the bus due to Bangkok's horrible traffic.



The only warning she gave me was that if any water came in the boat that i should close my eyes and cover my mouth because it is so polluted in the canals. Luckily this was not a problem. You do have to be on your feet when getting on and off of these boats however because there are no formal docks. You just kind of jump on and off the boat as its close to the shore.



Once we were back on solid ground we headed for Golden Mountain which is not only a large temple but the highest point in Bangkok.


Once we reached the top, Pu showed me how to properly worship to the gods (something i have messed up multiple times while visiting other countries shrines). The process here is quite involved and rather entertaining. Once a small donation is made we can get started. First off you have to grab a budding lotus flower and pull back the pedals and fold them so that they open up the flower.

Its rather easy to do but ends up looking rather cool. You can see the finished products on the right. Once you open them up and put them in the water they turn pink.

After you have finished your flower you are given 3 incense, a candle, and a small packet with some gold leaf in it. You light the candle and incense and then get on your knees and bow to the Buddha. you then place both in front of the statue making sure they are in the proper locations. Finally you take the gold leaf and press it against the statue so that it sticks. This step proved to be my downfall. Being that this is the highest point in Bangkok it was rather windy at the top. As i went to apply my gold leaf the wind blew it away. I then spent the next 5 minutes chasing it around the temple like an idiot as it blew around the floor. It got pretty bad and Pu looked fairly embarrassed. I'm kind of a big deal. I was victorious (if you want to call it that) and finally caught the small piece of gold and applied it to the Buddha.

That's how it should be done.
View from the top.

With those shenanigans behind us we proceeded to Ban Baat, a small village famous for handcrafting monk's bowls. I couldn't tell you what a monk bowl is but the process to make them is pretty cool. Lets take a look.

Step 1: Hammer the different pieces of the bowls together. The edges all have zipper like teeth that are pounded together for days by the villagers.

Step 2: Weld the edges (without any form of tinted eyewear) together and smooth out the bowl.

Step 3: Hammer some more!

Step 4: Throw in a wood oven for a few hours. Once heated, flash cool it in water and then dip it in acid. I am lacking a photo of the finished product. you should google it.

I was told each bowl takes around 5 days to make and retails for about $30-$50. After our bowl tour we stopped for a drink. I selected an orange soda and after i paid for it the lady took a plastic bag, filled it with ice, poured my drink into it, and topped it off with a straw. What was initially weird turned out to be fairly awesome. I proceeded to stroll around Bangkok with my new soda purse. Handbags truly are more affordable here.



Our next stop was Wat Suthat which is a temple that is around 700 years old. It features a number of Buddha statues with a giant one right in the main room of the temple.








The temple walls are lined with smaller Buddhas that locals have purchased and decorated and paid to be in the temple. The cost to install and decorate one is around $7,000 US. I thought about doing it for a while until i heard they were there to house the ashes of the owner. Im not ready to make that commitment yet. You also have to be connected to parliament to get one (yes i inquired about it).




Our next stop was lunch. We hit this neighborhood with a lot of street vendors. We ended up getting the crispy noodles with pork. Ordering street food with a native speaker is a much more enjoyable experience than my current process which involves pointing at some Thai word on the cart menu and hoping what they give you is edible. Another cool thing about this neighborhood is its where they make all of the badges and medals for the countries ministries, armed forces, and police. They also will sell these items to anyone regardless of if they are an official or not. I enjoyed buying their goods. I am now a narcotics officer for the Bangkok police department.




After lunch we headed over to Wat Ratbophit. I was told it was a hidden temple to tourists but it was so big im not sure how it could be missed. Regardless it was pretty awesome.


All of the walls were made from raised porcelain imported from China.

So that's how elephants are made...

Being as we had walked all over we decided to rent a Tuk Tuk to get to our next location; the Tiger Temple. There is some long folk tail associated with the temple but i wont bore you with it. It ends up with a tiger taking care of an old lady until she dies. It was a pretty awesome temple but photographs are not allowed so sucks for you. You get Tuk Tuk photos instead.



Pu and I. I will learn how to smile one of these days.

Our last two stops were at this horrible backpackers street that was filled with crap like cheap wallets and angry birds t-shirts and a small park by the river. When we arrived at the park the royal boat brigade was doing some training for when the king rides his super boat for special occasions. I was told this was very rare so i treated it as such by taking a photo. It was not very exciting but i am glad i saw it none the less.




We ended the day by taking a river taxi back to the sky train. There were many sites to see on the one hour ride.








It was a long day and im pretty whipped. I have to get up at 630 tomorrow morning which i am not looking forward to. I don't really feel like giving this a second look over so if it stinks, i blame Canada.


As a side note here are some other humorous things i have run into. I wish i had my camera with me when i saw the baby on the for sale table at the market that was left alone but these will have to do.

This was my dinner last night. So authentic.
Muslim cooking show that was on in my hotel. It was super bizarre and low budget.
This was an offering of beer (with a straw) that one of the bowl makers made to some relative of his.
Good idea or greatest idea?

Mr. Jack, Mr. Daeng, and Mr. Sak

It has come to my attention that the name Jake is a name that Thai people are completely unfamiliar with. Just about everywhere i go i am being referred to as 'Mr. Jack'. This was most evident this morning when i accidentally tipped the front desk lady a considerable amount of money.

She was arranging a private car for me to take me into the city to my new hotel. As she was explaining all of this she mentioned the price of the ride. I thought she was asking for payment, so i proceeded to give her a 1000 baht bill. She quickly took the bill and asked if it was for her. I frantically said yes and she proceeded to freak out at my unintentional act of generosity. She kept proclaiming 'THANK YOU SO MUCH MR. JACK!' over and over and then bowing to me.

Although an unintentional tip, it was rather gratifying. She then proceeded to give me her personal cell phone number and said she would take care of me next time i was in town. Being as i have no idea what she meant by that i will stay away from that offer.

When i arrived at the hotel the driver had to drop me off a block away because it was on a one way street. As i walked to the hotel i was approached by a man who said he would drive me around town for about 2$ an hour. After discovering my room was not ready for another two hours i took him up on this offer. This is how i met Mr. Daeng Sak.

He insisted i call him Mr. Daeng but I really just wanted to call him Mr. Sak. Partially because i found it mildly funny but also because he was kind of a sack.

Mr. Daeng spoke some English but it wasn't much. He told me he would show me the city no one else saw but his tour pretty much consisted of taking me to his friends shops to try to get me to buy something while he got a free gas card for the referral. Normally this would have pissed me off but i had nothing better to do at the time. The first stop was at his friends tailoring business. In the absence of parking spaces, Mr. Daeng simply pulled his truck onto the sidewalk and drove all the pedestrians away so he could park.

Sidewalk driving is the coolest

Buying a custom suit was something i was interested in before i met Mr. Daeng so i ended up buying from his friend. Im not sure if i could have talked him down more or not but i ended up getting a suit, 4 shirts, and a tie. He will be coming to my hotel room tomorrow to do the final fitting. After the tailor we went to this dumb gold shop and then he took me to a place for lunch. I don't know if it was a bad Thai restaurant or if American Thai places are super authentic but it tasted like dishes i have had before. The only difference is my curry had some sort of small bitter fruit on it that looked like jumbo peas.



Mr. Daeng sacked it up some more by trying to eat my food. After lunch he took me back to the hotel and my room was finally ready. This room is quite the improvement from the last. I guess it was worth it to pay a little extra for the 'Royal Suite'.




This was really the icing on the cake

Maybe i was being naive but i didn't realize how open everyone is here about soliciting prostitutes to Americans. Even the bell hop who took my bags to my room was telling me that the advantage of this hotel was that they do not charge extra to have a hooker in your room. Mr. Daeng was pretty set on taking me to a brothel which i had to decline on multiple occasions. He also tried to get me to 'rent' a girl for the week and attend the 'boy girl fuck show'. I'm holding out for the ping pong show.

The Eagle Has Landed

So i finally made it into Bangkok. That was not the most pleasant of flights. I wish Delta would step it up and not be so horrible on international flights. After looking at this blog again i realized i never really had a closing post for my last Japan trip. This was especially evident when i was transferring in Tokyo. Japan was fun. Moving on.

Michael Cera never looked so good



Getting into the country and to my hotel was surprisingly easy. Customs was a breeze and getting a cab was cake. The driver couldn't find my hotel but after pulling over and asking a few people on the street he figured it out. Its a pretty standard room for the price.



Here are a few features that stood out:

This was new to me. The power is killed every time you leave the room. Assuring it will be as hot as possible upon return.

Its good to know the Japanese are not alone with their amazing engrish signs.

The bathroom is interesting in the fact that once you take a shower, the rest is pretty much useless. They have a shower head on the wall and a drain in the floor which i have had before. But what makes this one extra special is the floor isn't slanted in any way and they offer no floor squeegee so once you take a shower, the floor is covered in water and there is no practice way to clean it up.




The best part about this whole system is that the shower is right next to the toilet. So not only is every piece of toilet paper rendered useless after a shower but if you take a long enough shower the toilet bowl fills up and starts to over flow which requires periodic flushing. This makes for an exciting water covered toilet that requires a whip down if you ever want to use it again.



The lack of A/C didn't make for the most pleasant first night but i will be going to a different hotel today. I made a reservation but i never got confirmation so we will see what happens.