Tour Bangkok in a Day!

Phra Phuttha Maha Suwan Patimakon

Now, I do realise that this is a ridiculous statement. Nobody could do Bangkok in a day! But our tour guide today says that she thinks we pretty much did. I must say that my legs are somewhat on the tired side! We seem to have walked for miles and miles!! Although actually we did! Anyway, enough of this, back to life in Bangkok. So, today we had a full day tour of Bangkok. We were met by our guide, ‘Belle’, who took us on our tour. First we went to visit the Golden Buddha, (officially called Phra Phuttha Maha Suwan Patimakon but we have no chance of saying that!), at the Wat Traimit temple. This Buddha is huge! It weighs 5,500 kg, is 3m high and 3.1m wide, and is reputed to be solid gold. This seems to be true, although the leaflet that was handed to us at the temple said that it was valued at £28.5m whereas at today’s gold price we think it is more like £131m, however, spectacular it was! Now, Captain Clarke reminded me that our good friend the Godstone Artist has decided that she will be Buddhist. I pointed out that I think it was a very unfair remark as even she is not 3.1m wide and, according to her long suffering husband, she doesn’t weigh as much as 5.5 tonnes either! I read that she must, ‘Undertake the training to abstain from substances which cause intoxication and heedlessness’. Now, I don’t profess to be an expert, but drinking wine by the Vat full doesn’t seem to suggest that the training is going all that well! It also confirms to me that Captain Clarke is definitely not a Buddhist, (current waistline excepted!).

Sacks of Orchids

Following our visit to the Golden Buddha, which was stunning, we were taken on a short journey to Bangkok’s largest flower market. We walked for miles just amazed at the sackfulls of Orchid flowers, beautiful and exotic arrangements and the sheer skill of the hundreds and hundreds of people working with the flowers. We took so many photographs it is difficult to know which one to feature here. Later this week, the first of the galleries will be published, (when I have found out how to do it!), with all of the photographs taken so far. The flower market led into a fruit and vegetable market where we saw pretty much every fruit and vegetable you can possibly think of in the Western world and quite a few that only feature in the East!

Now, I think at this point I should inform you, dear reader, that the accompanying party have been somewhat revolting! It appears that Others would rather not be known as Others. Oh dear, all very confusing. Apparently one of the issues being that when referred to as Others there is no distinction between Mrs Others or Mr Others. For this reason they have been given identities as follows: Mr Others will, from immediate effect, be known as Great Uncle Bulgaria, (although for logistical reasons may be shortened to GUB!), and Mrs Others will, from immediate effect, be known as Madame Cholet. For the astute amongst you, (this means you, my dear reader), you may have spotted that both of these names come from the classical TV series, ‘The Wombles’. Their naming does not, in any way, suggest that like The Wombles, they walk around collecting rubbish … although if the cap fits …

The Royal Palace

So, back to our tour of Bangkok. From the fantastic flower market, we headed straight on to the Royal Palace. Here we were treated with a variety of architectures that have been the result of differing dynasties over the centuries. The Buddhism religion derives from Hinduism and, this is where the current King and Queen get their names. The current King is King Rama IX. The story of Rama and Sita is very famous both within Hinduism and within Buddhism. I won’t try to educate you here, dear reader, as I have much more of our adventures to tell you about. If you would like to know the story, this is a good starting place. Meanwhile, back at the Royal Palace, a rather interesting occurance took place – it rained. Now, when I say it rained, it really rained! The entire assembled visitors, (several thousand), tried to take cover under the eaves of buildings, under open roofs, in fact anywhere that they could. This was nothing if not an impromptu wet t-shirt competition … and there were quite a few contenders!

The Emerald Buddha

Everyone was soaked to the skin. Madame Cholet had clearly taken a good bucketful of the wet stuff herself – she was soaked! Her beautiful turquoise blouse was now a beautiful seethrough turquoise blouse! Her white trousers had taken on a very dark hue at the bottom of the legs from all the dirt and rubbish that was thrown up by the rain. Captain Clarke was soaked through – him having decided that ducking out of the rain was a waste of time, I myself had taken rather a sloshing and was soaked through as was Great Uncle Bulgaria! However, like the troupers that we are, we carried on. The highlight of any visit to the Royal Palace is the ‘Emerald Buddha’. It is a stunning piece of art being a statue that is made out of ‘Green Jasper’ rather than emerald, although I will leave a further technical explanation of this to those who receive the ‘Captain’s Log’ – one small point though, the photo in the Captain’s Log is not in fact an accurate representation. The one on the left, taken by myself, is!

A LongTail Boat in Bangkok

And so, with weary feet, we wandered on to our next destination. This time, a boat trip in a ‘longtail’ boat. There is a lot to be said about the ‘longtail’ boat, but I shall keep this relatively brief. The longtail boat is so named because of the design of the propeller shaft which is, indeed, long. The point of this is two fold; firstly, the long shaft allows the boatsman to control the depth of the propeller which is particularly useful for navigating shallow waters, the second is that it enables the boat builder to drive the propeller directly from the engine to which it is attached. The single most important element of the longtail boat is the engine which must be second hand from a lorry or bus. There is almost never any exhaust per se and they are very noisy and those with a memory of ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ James Bond film may remember the scenes in the film where he hurtles around on a longtail boat. In fact, our guide told us we were going on a ‘James Bond Boat’ rather than a longtail boat!

Madame Cholet, Great Uncle Bulgaria and our guide, Belle

The boat trip itself was uneventful but great fun. We hurtled across the river and through the canals around Bangkok, sometimes at breakneck speed, and passed everything from beautiful temples, (there are quite a few in Thailand!), to ramshackle houses and even derelect buildings. Again, numerous photographs were taken, (wonderful things these photographic devices!), which will appear in the gallery later this week.

Health & what?!

One of note though, that I couldn’t resist sharing with you, dear reader, is on our right. This is a new roof going on a building that is right alongside the canal – health and what?!

And so, having completed our marine excursion we moved on, once again, to our penultimate visit of the day. On this occasion it was to the ‘Temple of Dawn’, otherwise known as ‘Wat Arun’. (We have discovered that the word ‘Wat’ means ‘Temple’ in Thai – well probably have this language cracked in a couple of days!). Now, dear reader, not that I am a retiring sort of chap, but this temple is a bit of a climb. When I say a bit of a climb, it is somewhere around 66 metres high and the steps are ridiculously steep!! From the top you can get great views of the city of Bangkok and you can see right around you, but most people are just glad they have made it to the top without serious injury! Having carried out an extensive survey of the construction I decided to send Captain Clarke as an advance party. I am glad that I did – this construction is not for the feint hearted, (and although I am pleased to report that there is nothing wrong with my heart, I don’t want to temp fate!).

Captain Clarke climbs Wat Arun

Captain Clarke made a sterling effort and reached the summit in order to take more photographs that will appear in the promised gallery. (I shall work on this in the next day or two). I, rather gallantly, decided that my services would be better assigned to looking after Madame Cholet and Great Uncle Bulgaria, them both being of advanced, (not too advanced!), years and both being, by this time, “completely knackered”. (I had to some extensive research on this phrase as it is one I am not familiar with – apparently it is an equine term relating to when a beast is no longer useful and is sent for slaughter. Hmm, NO that would be wicked!)

And finally, we crossed the river for our final excursion of the day. We visited the very famous ‘Reclining Buddha’. This is a huge Buddha that is lying down and reclining which, I am led to believe, is representative of relaxation.

Anyone for Chicken Ass?

One the way to see the Buddha, (as we came off the ferry that we took across the river), we did see some street food stalls. These look terribly interesting and I am determined that I will try food from one of them before I leave Thailand. That having been said, I really don’t think that all of the options are that appealing! If you look closely at the photo on your right, the fifth option just doesn’t sound that appealing to me. I suspect it might be a bit grisly!

The Reclining Buddha

So, having visited four temples, a huge flower, fruit and vegetable market, been on a longtail boat, taken a ferry across the Chao Phraya river and walked over 5 miles, (keeping in mind that we had a driver to get us between our excursions!), we were all “completely knackered”. We returned to our accommodation to rest our weary limbs and prepare for one last visit of the day – another fitting at the Tailors.

Now I am not trying to suggest that we are gullible but … Yes, it happened again – we went into the Tailor’s shop and came out with Madam Cholet having ordered three pairs of trousers! That shop is a nightmare! You walk in all innocent and with a resolve of steel that you will not order anything else and then, without warning, without notice and completely unintentionally, you walk out having spent yet more money and ordered yet more clothes!!! So, did we do Bangkok in a day? I think we gave it our best shot! It’s RudyMenTerry!

View the photo gallery of Bangkok in a Day here