« January 2006 | Main | March 2006 »
February 3, 2006
Exploring Bangkok
Today, Jessica’s first real day in Bangkok, we did quite a bit of touring around the city. After getting my haircut in the morning and relaxing at the hotel pool, we set off to explore the Royal Palace and a temple next door.
The temple housed the famous reclining Buddha. It was probably 40 meters long and 10 meters high, much bigger than I expected. We all took plenty of pictures of it. After exploring the grounds a bit more we headed down the street to visit the Royal Palace.
Andy and I were stopped because we were wearing shorts. For that reason we had to rent pants for to tour the area. As you can imagine we were looking pretty good. There were lots of people on the grounds but the majority looked to be from Thailand. A temple that housed a green jade Buddha was especially full of people praying and paying their respects. After an hour or so we caught a boat back to Rambuttri.
Tonight, while the girls got a massage Andy and I explored Khao San for the first time and got some drinks. Quite a lively place. The girls eventually met us and we ended up having drinks on some stools set up on the street. When I asked the owner of the street-side bar how she was allowed to up chairs in the street where people could drink, she told me she had to bribe the cops every night. Seems like a theme around here.
Making our way back to the hotel we took some pictures of a Shell gas station turned into a restaurant. One patron took offence and Andy had to calm him down but we got some good photos none the less.
Tomorrow we plan on exploring some more of the city.
Posted by Peter Mork at 1:11 AM | Comments | TrackBack
February 2, 2006
Andy and Jessica Arrive
We spent the morning uploading photos after eating at a nice café a few blocks away. We’re trying to pick up some Thai but so far it is really not catching on as quickly as I had hoped.
Andy’s plane was supposed to get to Bangkok at 12:20pm so I headed to the restaurant directly outside our lobby to wait for him at about 1:00. He ended up not getting to the hotel until nearly 3:00, but I had a good time talking to one of the owners who was from Burma. Once Andy had checked in we decided to catch the water taxi again and explore another part of downtown.
We got off a stop further south than Chinatown and started to make our way north by foot. We didn’t have anything in particular that we wanted to see, we just wanted to get a feel for the city. One of the first impressions is that Bangkok, while busy and heavily populated, is very safe. We made our way aimlessly through alleys packed with old car parts, past rundown docks, and by various waterways. I never felt as if we were in any danger.
After a few hours of exploring we jumped back on another water taxi to head back to the hotel. Jessica was getting in around midnight so around 11:00 we all jumped in a taxi to the airport. We were all there to greet her as she exited customs and before long we were back at the hotel. We had a beer on the busy street outside the hotel before calling it a night .
Posted by Peter Mork at 1:08 AM | Comments | TrackBack
February 1, 2006
Arriving in Thailand
First on the to-do-list in Bangkok was to get some money out of an ATM. Unfortunately that turned out to be a harder task than I had hoped. I walked out of our hotel at around 7:00 in search of an cash machine. There was one right down the block but Em’s card wouldn’t work, so I headed down the main street near our hotel in search of another.
Walking around I definitely got the feeling that we had entered another country. Vendors were starting to cook and set up things like pots of green curry on the sidewalk. At quite a few stands people were already eating. There were also numerous kids walking around in boy’s scouts uniforms, which was not something I expected.
I found a few more ATMs, none of which would work. I finally just pulled the last $40 out of my checking account to see if it was Em’s card that was the problem. In fact it was. Apparently it was demagnetized sometime in the last few days. Hopefully we can have one sent.
After checking some email at a tailor’s shop, Em and I decided to head down to China Town to see a bit of the city. We headed to the river where we heard that we could catch a water taxi. When we arrived though we found, surrounded by 5 scrappy dogs, an old woman who tried to get us on a boat for 300 baht. It was much more than we had heard and eventually she told us that the normal taxi left about 50 meters upstream and could get us to China Town for 30 baht.
The boat to Chinatown was a great introduction to Bangkok. We actually jumped a boat that had a guy on a PC telling us in English and Thai about the various temples we were passing, or the best way to get to the public bus station. There was everything from huge cargo ships to “long-tail” boats speeding around the river. After a 20 minute ride we departed at stop number five.
Chinatown was a bit hectic so after exploring the main market street we found a restaurant recommended in our guide book and sat down for a delicious meal. To get back to the hotel we jumped in a tuk-tuk. Air pollution is obviously a serious problem here as many of the drivers, ours included, work a medical type cover over his mouth. I’m sure it helped with all the exhaust fumes.
Tonight we ate near the hotel. Tomorrow Andy and Jessica arrive which will no doubt be fun and add a whole new twist to the next few weeks. We can’t wait.