Goodbye Bangkok, Hello Singapore!

Well, we’ve just said goodbye (or Sawasdee rather...) to Thailand and are on our way to Singapore. It’s much further than I thought – about a 2 hour flight, but it gives me a good break to write about the past few days we spent in Bangkok. Honestly, my opinion of Bangkok is not very high, which may be because I was pretty tired from the trekking days in Chiang Mai, or because it was generally overcast (or smoggy...) the whole time, but we did do some interesting things. Luckily our hotel (called Tenface Hotel) was great, had amazingly soft beds in modern suite style rooms and, best of all, delicious breakfasts which included dim sum every morning.



The train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was comfortable as far as trains go – there were two levels of beds that folded out from the chairs. Unfortunately, although they require that everyone be quiet at 10 pm, they leave the lights on all night, so being in the top bunk was kind of like sleeping in a dentist chair with the lights blaring in your face. I guess it’s okay though, because we saw some little cockroaches and Tony told us that if we killed them, all their friends would come looking for them and we would be swarmed. Luckily they don’t like the light very much, so they mostly stayed away and we didn’t have to kill any. Tony kept us company most of the afternoon, explaining some Thai customs, telling us about his fiancé named Golf, and telling us our horoscopes based on our days and years of birth. He told me it is best if I marry a man born on a Sunday, and that the small Thai Buddha that I bought is actually my Buddha (because its pose signifies that it’s a Thursday Buddha) and it will be good luck. Who knew. He also told us some funny translation stories, about Thai names that don’t translate well to English. He said that the word “Fuk” means “pumpkin”, and that “uman” (pronounced “You Man”) means something like “strong man” (you can probably see where this is going).. anyway he has a friend named “Fuk Uman” who will most likely have to change his name if he ever chooses to move to an English speaking country. Also, the word “porn” means wishes, so many people have names with “porn” in them, like … “Siriporn” which means “good wishes,” and also “Tittiporn” which means “fulfilled wishes.” He said that some English names sound really funny in Thai… but he wouldn’t tell us which ones so we suspected that maybe someone in our group has one of them.

Everyone in our group got off at the train station before ours, so we had to say goodbye sleepily at around 6:30 am when we arrived in Bangkok. It was definitely fun traveling in a group. Hopefully we’ll keep in touch.

After that, we went to our hotel, and sat in the café until we were allowed to check in and pass out in the huge bed. Needless to say, we didn’t do much that day. That night, we met up with a friend named Siriporn, who was introduced to us by the Welkes when she worked for Microsoft in Redmond. She has since moved back to Bangkok, and now works as a Microsoft evangelist there. She took us to a wonderful Thai seafood dinner on the river and told us all about her encounters with the princess.



It’s so cute how much the Thai people love their royal family. The king’s pictures are seriously EVERYWHERE. As you drive down most major streets you’re bombarded with pictures of him doing various things – standing in his royal garb, talking to little school children, visiting remote villages. His wife is in most of them as well. We learned that he has four children, three daughters and one son. The first daughter married an American and renounced her royalness. She has since divorced, so instead of being addressed as “Her Royal Highness” she is just “princess.” The second child is the son, who is the Crown Prince and is set to take over the throne from his father (who is now 82 and has been in the hospital for 3 months). The third is the princess that most people seem to love the most. She’s remained single, but has followed in her father’s footsteps, taking great concern for the Thai people, traveling to remote areas to hear their requests, etc. We didn’t hear much about the fourth daughter, but I think she’s married in Thailand and kind of lays low. Anyway, they’re the local celebrities, and saying anything negative about the king is punishable by law. My guidebook says that someone once referred to him as the “skipper” and was arrested because people weren’t sure what it meant. Also, since his picture is printed on every bill and imprinted on every coin, it is illegal to step on money. So I guess I’ve strayed a bit from dinner… but the point is that it was great food and company.


(a sticker in one of our taxis)

We’re landing in Singapore now, so I’ll have to write the rest of this later. Also there’s a man hacking out his lungs three seats away that’s making everyone nervous. Poor guy. Everyone’s holding napkins to their faces and glaring at him. Hopefully we don’t all get the swine.



.. Okay, where was I... oh yes, Bangkok. So the city itself is very depressing from what I could tell. There is no city planning or zoning work to speak of, so it’s kind of just a jumbled mass of grey concrete, some of which is tall office buildings, and some of which is probably the gloomiest slum-like apartments I’ve ever seen. There is very little greenery, and there also seem to be very few sidewalks, and thus not many pedestrians. It’s PACKED with cars though, and during rush hour it’s literally at a standstill. The one upside is that many of the taxis are hot pink. So there you have it.



While in Bangkok, we heard the major must-see site is the Grand Palace, so we checked that out on the second morning. It is, indeed, very impressive. Although it’s made up of a lot of beautiful things that are tightly packed together and pretty confusing to navigate through, each building is a masterpiece. Especially the temple area that houses the “Emerald Buddha” (remember Tony told us the lightning story earlier?) has amazing detail. All the buildings are either completely covered with gold encasing, or completely covered with the most intricate mosaic designs and patterns. The Emerald Buddha himself has three different gold outfits to go with the changing weather (rainy seasons, summer, winter) that they swap out ceremonially three times a year. The rest of the grand palace area has an interesting mix of European and Thai style buildings, including living areas, throne rooms, and weapon displays. There is also a Haagen Dasz that serves amazing caramel brownie ice cream - definitely an important part of the experience.



Later that day we checked out the big famous shopping area called MBK. It’s basically six floors packed with knockoff stuff. The tech area was actually pretty crazy. They have iPhones and every camera you can think of. It’s strange because it’s a lot like the silk road shopping area in Beijing, but the stuff seems like much better quality. It’s also much more expensive. I figure if you’re going to buy knockoff stuff, it might as well be cheap right? I’ll wait for China.



The next morning we went to the famous “Floating Market” which is about an hour and a half outside Bangkok. I think at one point, it was a local market where people went to buy their veggies and other goods for daily life from merchants who fill little boats with things to sell and float around. Now the experience goes something like this: pay a guy to take you out in his little narrow boat -> get stuck in something that resembles Bangkok car traffic, but is on the water and involves boat exhaust spewing at you from odd angles -> get pulled from every direction by boat merchants selling the exact same souvenirs as each other and as every other land market merchant -> get back to the dock and have them attempt to sell you an awkward picture of you printed on a bowl. I guess after the Cambodia floating village, it just seems insincere and overly populated with tourists. Honestly, it’s not horrible, but you should only go if you really want to buy souvenirs and fruit and are sick of the normal market scene.



That night we went to a dinner and traditional Thai dancing show. The dinner was great – they gave us little bowls of a lot of different things – curries, veggies, spring rolls etc. The dancing was also good, although I think I don’t quite understand the technique enough to appreciate it. They had beautiful sparkly traditional costumes, and the dancing involved a lot of kind of “move and pose, move and pose” type thing – with really subtle head and hip movements. The most striking thing is that the dancers curled their fingers back at what seemed like a very unnatural angle as they dance.



Anyway, that just about brings us up to date – to Singapore. Landing here was like a breath of fresh air – the lawns are all perfectly manicured, there’s green everywhere, everything is orderly - the palm trees are even strategically placed. We landed over beautiful blue, tropical water and islands, and the sky has been blue and clear all day. It’s definitely a large contrast to the chaos and grit of Bangkok. Maybe I just went at the wrong time and saw the wrong things. We did miss the two biggest temples because I was a bit templed out. I guess I won’t meet the large reclining Buddha until next time. So, I’ll update again after we see some exciting things here. Also, I posted a lot of my pictures from Cambodia and Thailand here:

Thailand

Cambodia

I still have more to add, but there are probably already more up than any of you will have time to look through, haha. If you’re interested though, I’ll write again when I add the rest. Talk soon!
P.S. comment! Because it makes me happy! and I can never tell if anyone is reading this Cop Koon Kaa (Thank you) <3