I'm writing this blog post on day 7 of our trip! I can't believe it's been a week so far - it somewhat feels like we got here yesterday still, and it also feels like we've been here for months!
Sunday was a big day for us in Bangkok. Our first full day, we were eager to power through energetic activities all day long so as to not succumb to the dreaded nap (which would, presumably, screw up our sleeping timetable for quite some time). We woke up early and headed out to find some street food for breakfast. Not even a block from our hostel we found this woman just setting up shop. We stayed to watch for a bit and a line formed, so we assumed that this was a good place to get some food!
I ordered rice with some white vegetables, colorful vegetables (and possibly noodles?), and the meat-looking stuff. Charlie ordered rice with the same white vegetables, the meat-looking stuff, and some pasta/rice/veggie thing with red flakes that smelled amazing (we clearly didn't know what we were ordering!).
Turns out I was smart to stay away from the dish with the red flakes, because my plate was spicy but Charlie's plate was out of this world spicy! He actually had to get up and walk to the hostel to buy a water and come back before he could finish his food. A tiny old Thai woman sat next to us and laughed as she ate her food.
Once we recovered from the spice, and decided to never order anything with red flakes again, we headed off to Chatuchak Market - a weekend market made up of an elaborate half indoor half outdoor tent structure that went on for ever! They sold everything there - clothes, jewelry, fake plants, food, fine art, souvenirs, shoes, soaps, sculptures, vintage leather, underwear, silverware... truly everything. Charlie and I got some light and flowy clothes to help with the sweltering heat, and we got our first Thai massage! It cost 150 Baht (about $5) for a 30 minute foot massage, which was heavenly because A) the massage place had A/C and B) our feet felt like they were going to fall off after all the walking!
We ended up spending nearly five hours at the market! We got our Tuk Tuk back to the hostel and decided to lay down a bit before heading out to some temples. So we laid down... then we closed our eyes... and before we knew it WE HAD SLEPT FOR ALMOST FOUR HOURS!!!! Haha. Oops.
So we missed our chance for temples that day, but we woke up just in time to join our hostel pub crawl through the infamous backpacker party checklist destination Khoa San Road. A huge walking street lined with massive outdoor bars on either side, littered with drunk tourists and amazing street food (including SPIDERS! SCORPIONS! SNAKES! oh my). The night was fun but a little hectic and soon a group of five of us formed in hopes of relocating to find something else to do! (After eating some street Pad Thai, of course).
OK, so here is where the night got weird. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because I want to spare you all, but if you're interested, you can look this up. We went to a "Ping Pong Show", and I'd just like to state for the record that we really had no clue what we were getting ourselves into, and we really thought it was some harmless tourist trap that seemed like it would be a good story later on. And I guess we were right about the "good story later on" part... but it was truly the most uncomfortable thing I've ever experienced. For those of you who want to know what this is without the gory details that will come with googling - a "Ping Pong Show" is a Bangkok legend where women shoot ping pongs (and other things) out of their hoo-has. If you want to know more look it up, but for anyone thinking of coming to Bangkok to see one for themselves I highly discourage you.
We got home at 4am, most of us scarred for life and all of us dying to scrub our eyes out, and went to bed in shock.
Anyways! We woke up on Monday and got ready to see all the temples we slept through the day before. First stop - Vimnamek Mansion. We told our Tuk Tuk driver to take us there and he brought us to a giant ornate government building/mansion that was near Vimnamek, so we started walking. This place was meant to be some ancient mansion-converted-museum made entirely out of very thin wood, and the pictures looked gorgeous. However, after walking around where it was supposed to be for almost 30 minutes, we realized that it wasn't there anymore! In its place was a mound of rubble, and I have no clue why or what happened.
Defeated, we went back to the hostel to regroup, and decided to head to two nearby temples - Wat Pho first (which has the huge Reclining Buddha) and Wat Arun next (which lights up at night and sits right on a river). First, some pictures of Wat Pho and the Reclining Buddha:
After that temple we got dinner and had a banana/Ovaltine crepe from a street cart (this is a very common thing to find apparently). We walked through Wat Arun, but were pretty beat from the day, so we decided to leave before all the lights turned on and headed back to the hostel to settle in.
On Tuesday we had a very long travel day to a southern island called Phuket, but I'll write about that and our next two islands in the next blog post. For now, I'll leave you with an excerpt from my journal that I wrote just after visiting Wat Pho:
We entered the main room of the temple and I faced a towering statue of Her, on top of what seemed like miles of gold and love. I sat down and stared into her knowing eyes. I kept hearing the phrase "she knows, she knows, she knows". I wanted to know, too. I closed my eyes to meditate and a warmth ran through my veins like a liquid gold bath. I felt Her power. I understood the words "still" and "silent".
Sunday was a big day for us in Bangkok. Our first full day, we were eager to power through energetic activities all day long so as to not succumb to the dreaded nap (which would, presumably, screw up our sleeping timetable for quite some time). We woke up early and headed out to find some street food for breakfast. Not even a block from our hostel we found this woman just setting up shop. We stayed to watch for a bit and a line formed, so we assumed that this was a good place to get some food!
I ordered rice with some white vegetables, colorful vegetables (and possibly noodles?), and the meat-looking stuff. Charlie ordered rice with the same white vegetables, the meat-looking stuff, and some pasta/rice/veggie thing with red flakes that smelled amazing (we clearly didn't know what we were ordering!).
Turns out I was smart to stay away from the dish with the red flakes, because my plate was spicy but Charlie's plate was out of this world spicy! He actually had to get up and walk to the hostel to buy a water and come back before he could finish his food. A tiny old Thai woman sat next to us and laughed as she ate her food.
Once we recovered from the spice, and decided to never order anything with red flakes again, we headed off to Chatuchak Market - a weekend market made up of an elaborate half indoor half outdoor tent structure that went on for ever! They sold everything there - clothes, jewelry, fake plants, food, fine art, souvenirs, shoes, soaps, sculptures, vintage leather, underwear, silverware... truly everything. Charlie and I got some light and flowy clothes to help with the sweltering heat, and we got our first Thai massage! It cost 150 Baht (about $5) for a 30 minute foot massage, which was heavenly because A) the massage place had A/C and B) our feet felt like they were going to fall off after all the walking!
We ended up spending nearly five hours at the market! We got our Tuk Tuk back to the hostel and decided to lay down a bit before heading out to some temples. So we laid down... then we closed our eyes... and before we knew it WE HAD SLEPT FOR ALMOST FOUR HOURS!!!! Haha. Oops.
So we missed our chance for temples that day, but we woke up just in time to join our hostel pub crawl through the infamous backpacker party checklist destination Khoa San Road. A huge walking street lined with massive outdoor bars on either side, littered with drunk tourists and amazing street food (including SPIDERS! SCORPIONS! SNAKES! oh my). The night was fun but a little hectic and soon a group of five of us formed in hopes of relocating to find something else to do! (After eating some street Pad Thai, of course).
OK, so here is where the night got weird. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because I want to spare you all, but if you're interested, you can look this up. We went to a "Ping Pong Show", and I'd just like to state for the record that we really had no clue what we were getting ourselves into, and we really thought it was some harmless tourist trap that seemed like it would be a good story later on. And I guess we were right about the "good story later on" part... but it was truly the most uncomfortable thing I've ever experienced. For those of you who want to know what this is without the gory details that will come with googling - a "Ping Pong Show" is a Bangkok legend where women shoot ping pongs (and other things) out of their hoo-has. If you want to know more look it up, but for anyone thinking of coming to Bangkok to see one for themselves I highly discourage you.
We got home at 4am, most of us scarred for life and all of us dying to scrub our eyes out, and went to bed in shock.
Anyways! We woke up on Monday and got ready to see all the temples we slept through the day before. First stop - Vimnamek Mansion. We told our Tuk Tuk driver to take us there and he brought us to a giant ornate government building/mansion that was near Vimnamek, so we started walking. This place was meant to be some ancient mansion-converted-museum made entirely out of very thin wood, and the pictures looked gorgeous. However, after walking around where it was supposed to be for almost 30 minutes, we realized that it wasn't there anymore! In its place was a mound of rubble, and I have no clue why or what happened.
Defeated, we went back to the hostel to regroup, and decided to head to two nearby temples - Wat Pho first (which has the huge Reclining Buddha) and Wat Arun next (which lights up at night and sits right on a river). First, some pictures of Wat Pho and the Reclining Buddha:
After that temple we got dinner and had a banana/Ovaltine crepe from a street cart (this is a very common thing to find apparently). We walked through Wat Arun, but were pretty beat from the day, so we decided to leave before all the lights turned on and headed back to the hostel to settle in.
On Tuesday we had a very long travel day to a southern island called Phuket, but I'll write about that and our next two islands in the next blog post. For now, I'll leave you with an excerpt from my journal that I wrote just after visiting Wat Pho:
I know Buddha is supposed to be a man, but I really felt like she was a woman today at the temple. There were, around every corner, tens of Buddha statues. I would gasp each time I rounded a corner and witnessed another row of gold-plated meditating goddesses. It was a testament to endless worship. I kept thinking of how it was the truest sense of a "labor of love". Each row of statues was individual, and each face had different features. As if no one could decide what her face really looked like. As if it didn't matter. As if they were all right.
We entered the main room of the temple and I faced a towering statue of Her, on top of what seemed like miles of gold and love. I sat down and stared into her knowing eyes. I kept hearing the phrase "she knows, she knows, she knows". I wanted to know, too. I closed my eyes to meditate and a warmth ran through my veins like a liquid gold bath. I felt Her power. I understood the words "still" and "silent".
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