First stop on our four country Bucket List Tour. Arrived in the afternoon, picked up by a hotel car, taken to the hotel and checked in. Nancy arranged a couple tours with one of the Bell Captains and we went to our room, checked in, then took a walk downtown to see what’s what. Found out you shouldn’t drink the water so we hydrated with a couple local beers.
They must have worked well as we never suffered from dehydration or food poisoning.
Our first day out, after a good night of sleep, we went to the Grand Palace where the King of Thailand lives. Thailand has had a spattered mix of kings and civil leaders in its history. If you are into that kind of detail I recommend you look it up. Quite involved and way too long for me to describe. Besides, I’m sure you are aching to see my pictures! Here we are at the Grand Palace. We were picked up by a driver and driven to the palace. As we walked in this little old lady offered to be our guide for a small sum of money. Her english was good so we said “Okay!”. She took us in and proceeded with her three hour tour. Very ornate, extremely decorative and a great dal of fine detail. Quite interesting. The first few pictures are on the drive from the hotel to the palace.
We went to another Temple. The Temple of the Sleeping Buddha. Not nearly as opulent or well kept but worth a walk through.
Those were our two tours for the day. We did not have a guide during the second temple but much was the same as the first. Thousands of temples in Thailand … all a little different but basically the same. All interesting to see … at least the first hundred or so.
So fearing the heat, humidity, and dehydration we went back to the hotel. Walked around a bit and found an Irish pub … just what you would expect in Bangkok. Had some refreshment and a bite to eat.
We had a pleasant dinner at the hotel and turned in. That was our first day in Bangkok, Thailand. Interesting place. Next up tomorrow … the Train Market, the Floating Market, and an elephant ride. Stay Tuned. More posts coming.
Here we are, another day in Thailand. Today’s activities were booked by Nancy a couple months ago. She wanted to ensure she would get to ride an elephant while we were in Thailand. Many places have stopped providing elephant rides due to pressure from animal rights people and organizations. They claim it is cruel to the animals so most “camps” now provide an opportunity to feed, bath, and walk with an elephant but not ride one. Nancy found a tour service that would provide an elephant ride and assured her the animals were well cared for, loved, and not abused. So, Nancy booked a full day tour (the only choice) that included the Train market, the Water market, and an elephant ride. We were told to meet the tour at a specific intersection in Bangkok and we would be whisked off on an exciting full day tour of Thailand.
We took a cab to the appointed spot at the appointed time and met up with our group of about 5 people. We had about an hour drive to a location where there was a very large market that had a set of train track running right down through the middle of it. We were kinda dumped off at the edge of the market and told to be back to the dump off spot in one hour. I don’t think anyone knew what was going on or what to do. Nancy and I walked into the market and strolled along looking at all the stuff they sold and figured out (from a train schedule) that the train comes through every 30 minutes or so, then returns. Most of the market stalls that were next to the tracks had a row of chairs that you could sit on to watch the train go by. We had no idea what kind of train it was so when everyone looked like they were getting ready for a train to come by, we rented a couple seats and waited. Soon, all the merchants with stalls along the tracks started taking down the awnings they had in front and making sure everyone sitting on their chairs were behind a line. No one stayed in their chairs, they all walked out onto the tracks to see if they could see that train coming. Soon it did. A full sized train, not long, maybe ten cars, but full sized engine and cars, with people in them, slowly went by. As it neared people would return to their seats behind the line, sit down, and wave at the train as it passed. When it had passed, the merchants reassembled their awnings, put their displays back out front, and life went on. Have a look!
Ok then … we made it back to the van by the appointed time and we were whisked off to see the Floating Market. I wasn’t sure what to think after the train market so I just waited to see what would happen. Another drive through the country and we came to the “Little Venice” of Thailand. Situated on the edge of a large lake, canals were dredged out and people started selling things along the edge and from their boats. Many different kinds of boats and most anything you can think of to buy. Before the pictures of the Floating market are a few window shots as we wheeled our way across rural Thailand.
That was the Floating Market … interesting. So those who had booked the elephant ride, or wanted to go because everyone booked all three adventures, were loaded up in the whisk van and taken to the elephant camp. There we queued up on a platform and prepared to step up onto our seats on top of an elephant. The driver, or Mahout, sat in front on the back of the elephant’s head. We sat in a seat saddled onto the elephants back right behind the Mahout. The Mahout was friendly and talked during most of the ride describing his life, how he cared for the elephant, etc. Interesting. Let’s have a look!
And that was the end of our ride. Nancy had her elephant ride … I’m happy. Happy wife, Happy life you know! From dismount we were given the opportunity to buy 400 pictures of our ride. Wd declined and loaded up in our van, went back to the Floating market and picked up those on our tour who chose not to abuse elephants and drove back to Bangkok. Another interesting day. ON the way back to the hotel we saw this German restaurant so we walked down to if and had dinner. On the way back from dinner we stopped to make sure Fitzgerald was doing okay. All is well.
The next day was Sunday. We decided that as long as there was a church very near by offering an English Mass we would do that to start our day after a quick breakfast.
After Church we took a Taxi downtown … the new part of downtown that hosts one of the tallest buildings in the world. The Cube. We took an elevator to the top and viewed Bangkok.
There was a large glass floored area you could walk out onto and look down. Camers were not allowed but phones were so I took some pictures looking down.
So that’s The Cube. Nancy wanted to see China Town and a big gold Buddha they have there so we took a taxi to China town. Traffic was heavy and our taxi driver said he was not going any further. He pointed in a direction and said China town was that way and not very far. It was that way but a bit farther than he indicated. Anyway, we found it. The trials and perils of travel and all that you know! Here’s some pictures.
China town was not like any China Town we found in the US or other countries. It was basically just another big market. The temple was interesting with an interesting history of the Buddha. Thailand has many temples housing giant golden statues of Buddha but Wat Traimit houses a giant statue of Buddha made of pure gold. Although the statue is several centuries old, its identity was only revealed only 67 years ago. It weighs 5.5 Tons. Go to telegraphindia.com to read MUCH more about it. An interesting history.
This was our last day in Bangkok, for now. Tomorrow we fly up to the Golden Triangle. Don’t miss it.
Here we are at the Golden Triangle of Thailand. Its called the Golden Triangle because three countries come together when two rivers (The Mekong and The Ruak) converge. Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), Laos, and Thailand are all in this one little corner. It’s called “Golden” because the area was used heavily by drug smugglers and dealers and a great deal of money and gold passed through. We had planned to spend three days up by the Golden Triangle but when we arrived there we found there was not really a great deal to see there and the other stuff we wanted to see was back in Chang Rai. So I cranked up booking dot com and booked two nights in Chang Rai. We would be much closer to the temples we wanted to see there and close to the airport when we flew back to Bangkok. We arrived at the Golden Triangle fairly early so we walked around a bit and found there was really no where to go. We booked a driver for the next day to take us up to the Golden Triangle site, let us tour a bit, then drive us back to Chang Rai. We had dinner at the hotel, took a ride to the center of the community we were staying in and walked around in the market, then returned to the hotel.
The next morning, after breakfast we proceeded with our plan and our driver took us to “the Golden Triangle” which is really just a gathering of businesses, Temples, and concessions. That worked though because we ended up having an interesting morning.
The next morning we grabbed a bit of breakfast, met our driver, and we were off to the Golden Triangle. We took our bags with us because we planned to spend a couple hours touring the Golden Triangle then head south to Chang Rai.
We drove down to Chang Rai which was about an hour drive. along the way, Nancy had read up about a village where they had long Necked Karens and she wanted to see it. This scared me a bit due to all the bad press about Karens lately but I put my trust in Nancy and we went there.
That was the long necked Karens. The path was about a kilometer long linking up the three villages. The Karens were all selling things they had made. I looked like they lived there. From here we were taken to our hotel which was a very nice resort. Nancy arranged for a driver and some tours for tomorrow and we settled in for the evening. I’m going to end this post here. It is getting too long and slowing down. I will pick up from here with a post call “Chang Rai and the three temples”.
