Above is a street view of Fortville, where Sam and I stayed for two nights in Bangkok. Below are two photos of the fort down the street that it is designed after.
Our only plan for the day was to visit the palace. We were within walking distance so we walked down the street. Across from the fort we ate breakfast at a roti restaurant.
Then we walked through a local college and along the river.
Everywhere in Thailand everyone wants to have one of these miniature buddhist temples on their property. They are nearly as numerous as the photos of the king and queen and I’m assuming they are meant to bring good luck.
The below photo is from outside the gates to the Grand Palace. I’ll write a little bit below about what some of the buildings are, but for the truly curious you should check out the wikipedia page linked in the previous sentence. It explains more about the 34 different important sites in the complex.
One of the first things we did was visit the Pavilion of Regalia, Royal Decorations and Coins. My dad would have loved it as they had many ceremonial swords on display. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, I thought I’d be able to find an image online of the three-headed naga sword, but a google search turns up nothing. Perhaps it is usually called something else.
It was really hard to get photos without any people in them since we were going on a Saturday. Huge amounts of Chinese tourists come to Thailand and it seemed like they were all here today. Below is a photo of Phra Siratana Chedi, built in the 19th century and supposedly housing the ashes of Buddha.
Below is one of the corners of Phra Mondop, a Thai style library supposedly housing sacred Buddhist manuscripts.
I waited forever and ever but this girl with the pink dress just wouldn’t move. Because there was so much foot traffic by this area I eventually gave up hope of getting a photo of the entrance to the library sans humans.
The next series of photos were taken around (but not in, as that’s not allowed) the temple of the emerald buddha. Inside the temple is a two foot high jade statue of the sitting buddha adorned with a gold outfit that changes depending on the season.
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We walked by Chakri Maha Prasat Hall on our way out.
On our way back to Fortville hotel we walked along the sidewalk markets. Below is advertising for a Thai dental laboratory.
We took the ferry to the other side of the river and back again.
At 3pm Sam’s brother-in-law, along with her sister and mother, picked us up to take us all to the floating market at Amphawa. I didn’t realize it was two hours from Bangkok. On the way we passed what must be the industrial area of outer Bangkok. One of the food factories actually buys shrimp from Sam’s family shrimp farm and ships to Costco in the U.S. The factories were all different than ones in the U.S. Most of the piping was either inside or carefully concealed and every building was painted not necessarily in bright colors, but not the standard white, grey or black that you’d see in America. Each one also proudly proclaimed what it did, some with giant statues of company mascots and the like by the highway. I didn’t start taking pictures until we got to Amphawa.
We ate dinner at a restaurant with a live acoustic guitar band that took requests from the audience. The singer did his best with the songs but the Asian accent was pretty strong. It reminded me of that scene in A Christmas Story. You know which one. At one point he sang Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, but it came out “Oh Buddy Oh Bruddah – Life Goes On Bra!” I think from the last part being “brah” maybe he assumed the first two parts were “buddy” and “brother.” Such is the charm of a night out in Thailand.
Our first meal was… you guessed it, Cartman – mee krob! Which Cartman is totally misinformed about by the way as mee krob tastes a lot like caramel popcorn.
We tried to take some shots from the bridge after nightfall.
I found some cool souvenirs at one of the stands in the area on land leading to the parking lot. Sam’s mom actually negotiated for me to get a cheaper price since she’d bought something for herself when we passed by earlier. In fact, it is worth noting that Sam’s mom might be the most charitable person I’ve met. Every time I’ve been around her and we see a beggar she’ll give them something, and the beggars at the floating market were no exception.
small temples are spirit houses– see here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_house
The temple @ Udon had a rather large one.
I took a snap of the emerald bud on the very spot you did when I was in Bangkok. You should have a copy. it’s file name is 66-(some number)-(some number) green bud.jpeg.
Bit of irony: 2 days ago your mother showed me a picture from a local store advertising rambutan and wondered why they were so expensive. Did you bring back a durian?
Great job on the blog/pics. You have a gift for writing as strong as your art & music.
You’re right. Found it. Very interesting we were on the exact same spot on the other side of the world. You even took it slightly from the left like mine. You want me to post it? Did you have to wait as long as I did to get a shot? By the way – the Bangkok you saw in 1965 must be almost nothing like what I saw (Grand Palace aside) – there is a ton of recent development there and a lot of “ritzy” areas. Bangkok is experiencing a similar growth spurt as places like Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore… but nobody talks about it for some reason. Even in Chiang Mai there were billboards for luxury homes EVERYWHERE.
Did you inform mom why they were so expensive? Sam said she saw some a few years ago here and they were $15 a pound or something…and they were bad. She said I can buy canned mangosteen here, so I’m going to try that next time we’re in Thai Town.
We bought durian and I tried it. It’s okay – but not really what I want when I want fruit. It kind of tastes like a mix of bananas and butter. It has a strong smell…but not a BAD smell (to me). I didn’t bring any plants back… probably not a good idea to mess around when you’re flying on september 11th to Los Angeles.
And thank you for the compliment. These posts and photos take a lot of time and effort to put together and I sometimes wonder if it is worth it. I was working on them every spare moment until about 5pm today. I was only able to post them all yesterday and today because I’m really sick (caught it on the plane I guess) and have been home from work.
Also – I think photography runs in the family, no?
If you want to post the pic(s) and comment on the fact that we were both in Bangkok in Aug or any thing like that it is O.K. with me. I kind of like to look for patterns in things (like the rambutan).
When I was in Thailand the war was just getting started and Bangkok was a place where you rarely saw a farang. The guy (thai) that I went around with (in Bangkok) took me down to the waterfront and as we were walking along the thais keep looking at me funny and saying “farang”, when I asked him what was up he said that most of the people had never seen a white guy in that area (but it was not like a white guy going down to Compton at night!).
All the buildings were kind of grey and run down–not all bright colors like I see in your pics– you can see that in my pics. Almost all the roads in northern Thailand were latterlite. We lived in huts with tin roofs and just screen on the sides. The toilet was the side of a wall or the klong. We did have centrall “out houses” and sun warmed showers after a while.