SouthernKing
crickety cricket
You've made me want to go to Thailand now 
Thailand & Cambodia are awesome!
- Thread starter warpus
- Start date
warpus
In pork I trust
Chinatown and beyond
Chinatown is the oldest part of Bangkok and a bit of an urban jungle. It was very fun to explore.
Fun to explore, but not fun to photograph.. The crowds were too big! I played it safe and kept my camera in my camera bag and my camera bag in my daypack.
So then I get to a sign that says that the sidewalk is closed and that I should take a detour to the right.
Here's what was to the right:
The walkway got more and more narrow until you could fit no more than 1 non-obese person through it... which I thought was weird because the street itself was like .. you know.. a couple lanes wide.. and this "detour" was taking me deep into some dense cluster of buildings. Any thoughts I might have had that this was not really the detour though were dispelled by the occasional arrows and the people going the exact same way, including the monk ahead of me. And if you can't trust a Buddhist monk, who can you trust?
I kept going and eventually found a magical place where a can of pop could be acquired for only a couple baht.
And now all of a sudden an hour or two of the story are missing and I'm in a tuk tuk with a five stop itinerary in hand, the last one being the Grand Palace.
Link to video.
What?
It doesn't matter, I'm at a new temple complex:
I tried to be respectful when taking pictures of religious looking things. Thai people are generally so friendly, cheerful, and welcoming, that I just couldn't help it but draw certain lines of my own that I wouldn't cross, like for example not ever using the flash or not getting too close to certain things or sometimes taking off my shoes. I wanted to show proper respect when I was around things that meant a lot to them, and Thai people take Buddhism for the most part very seriously.
Chinatown is the oldest part of Bangkok and a bit of an urban jungle. It was very fun to explore.
Fun to explore, but not fun to photograph.. The crowds were too big! I played it safe and kept my camera in my camera bag and my camera bag in my daypack.
So then I get to a sign that says that the sidewalk is closed and that I should take a detour to the right.
Here's what was to the right:
The walkway got more and more narrow until you could fit no more than 1 non-obese person through it... which I thought was weird because the street itself was like .. you know.. a couple lanes wide.. and this "detour" was taking me deep into some dense cluster of buildings. Any thoughts I might have had that this was not really the detour though were dispelled by the occasional arrows and the people going the exact same way, including the monk ahead of me. And if you can't trust a Buddhist monk, who can you trust?
I kept going and eventually found a magical place where a can of pop could be acquired for only a couple baht.
And now all of a sudden an hour or two of the story are missing and I'm in a tuk tuk with a five stop itinerary in hand, the last one being the Grand Palace.
Link to video.
What?
It doesn't matter, I'm at a new temple complex:
I tried to be respectful when taking pictures of religious looking things. Thai people are generally so friendly, cheerful, and welcoming, that I just couldn't help it but draw certain lines of my own that I wouldn't cross, like for example not ever using the flash or not getting too close to certain things or sometimes taking off my shoes. I wanted to show proper respect when I was around things that meant a lot to them, and Thai people take Buddhism for the most part very seriously.
warpus
In pork I trust
I didn't either until I left the airport in a cab and it drove on the left hand side of the road and we didn't die.
I read a couple "General things about Thailand" type intros to the country as part of my research, so I'm not sure how I missed that one.
You've made me want to go to Thailand now
I want to go back so bad I've already told a friend I might go with her next fall. (but I guess I probably won't)
warpus
In pork I trust
One of the first things I noticed too. I don't know if I have any videos of this, but at red lights all the motorcycles make their way to the front. Since there's no real traffic laws (heh heh), you can squeeze a motorcycle into tiny spaces and get around cars and stuff. Bangkok's traffic is horrible, I can definitely see the appeal.
CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
It seems to me that they really like that Buddha fellow.
It makes sense. Bikes are cheaper than cars. The show Top Gear had a special in Vietnam which showed a lot of that as well.
Link to video.
Goodfella
Showing results for
Good thing you didn't have to cross the street before getting in.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Is the air pollution serious? As in black clouds emanating from vehicles with straining engines?
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
From experience this is common in most major Indian cities as well. It seems to have gotten better over the past several years though.
ywhtptgtfo
Emperor
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2010
- Messages
- 1,746
I've been to Bangkok last November. One thing I seriously recommend is to go to those big markets and try out their local dishes (obviously, try to pick clean booths).
It's a big waste of a trip if one doesn't get a stomach full of Thai delicacies.
It's a big waste of a trip if one doesn't get a stomach full of Thai delicacies.
warpus
In pork I trust
Hah, yes. The history of Thai Buddhism is interesting and most Thais seemed to take Buddhism very seriously. Except for the Muslims in the south of course.
My roommate has told me about this very episode!! I have not watched it yet, thanks for the link.
Given my state of mind at the time.. yeah.. that could have been "surprising" to say the least.
Big oversight on my part not looking into the whole "left or right side of the road?" issue. I guess I assumed right for some reason?
The air quality in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand seemed pretty good when I was there actually.
I looked stuff up though and
I'm thinking but I can't remember any black clouds. I guess a lot of the vehicles must be up to standard or my memory just plain sucks.
I hate shopping but love food - I definitely enjoyed the food in the country. The curries, soups, noodle dishes, salads, springrolls, fried rice, and whatever else.. The food was definitely one of the most enjoyable parts of the trip.
warpus
In pork I trust
Wat Intharawihan, the tallest Buddha statue in Bangkok
My deal with the tuk tuk driver was that he was going to take me to a couple different places for a relatively cheap fare and then drop me off at the Grand Palace. One of those places was a tailor shop where I was measured and fitted for a suit, another was a travel office where I got advice and booked some things, there were a couple temples, and then there was Wat Intharawihan.
Wat Intharawihan is cool because it is giant. But when the tuk tuk dropped me off by some temple, I could not see it. So I went to ask this lady where the big Buddha statue is, and she tells me to look to the left. And this is what I see:
It seemed customary for people to attach pieces of gold leaf to some statues for good luck.
Here's one with not too many on yet.
Hellllo
A much smaller Buddha
Giant Buddha feet
My deal with the tuk tuk driver was that he was going to take me to a couple different places for a relatively cheap fare and then drop me off at the Grand Palace. One of those places was a tailor shop where I was measured and fitted for a suit, another was a travel office where I got advice and booked some things, there were a couple temples, and then there was Wat Intharawihan.
Wat Intharawihan is cool because it is giant. But when the tuk tuk dropped me off by some temple, I could not see it. So I went to ask this lady where the big Buddha statue is, and she tells me to look to the left. And this is what I see:
It seemed customary for people to attach pieces of gold leaf to some statues for good luck.
Here's one with not too many on yet.
Hellllo
A much smaller Buddha
Giant Buddha feet
ywhtptgtfo
Emperor
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2010
- Messages
- 1,746
Also consider trying the massage and those dead skin-eating fishes. Those services are dirt cheap compare to North America.
warpus
In pork I trust
Oh, I've been back home here in Canada for a couple months now
But yeah, when I was there I got a couple massages, including a fish one (in Cambodia). And I gotta say, authentic Thai massage is intense
amadeus
Serenity now
Did you go to other parts of Thailand? How did they compare as far as development vs. Bangkok? From the pictures, I couldn't tell it from any other major industrialized Asian city, so I'm curious to hear about how much of Thailand's development is centralized in Bangkok.
warpus
In pork I trust
They were fairly common. Temples and altars were commonplace, people would have personal altars set up in their homes, yards, in restaurants, in public spaces, etc.. and both temples and altars attracted a fair amount of Buddha statues.. so they were around.
And what was perhaps even more common were altar-like displays honoring the King and royal family.
Bangkok is by far the most urbanized and well developed city and part of Thailand. The rest of the country doesn't compare, but the roads and other infrastructure were decent wherever I went. The only non-paved "main" roads I encountered were in Cambodia. I believe all of Thailand recently went through an infrastructure and construction boom, but most of that probably ended up in Bangkok.
I spent some time in the centre and north of the country (Ayutthaya, Sukhothai, and Chiang Mai) and a bunch of time in the south of the country on both coasts, on the west in the Ao Nang area and in the east on a couple islands like Ko Pha Ngan. So a lot of that wasn't very urban, aside from in some way Chiang Mai. Bangkok has glitzy malls that rival anything we have in North America, a modern subway and skytrain, a lot of skyscrapers, crazy traffic,.. Parts of it feel like a modern western metropolis like city.
Goodfella
Showing results for
Buddhists seem to love their statues. If you look at this wiki page of tallest statues in the world, you'll see that almost all of them are in East Asian countries and depict figures from Buddhism.
CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
I wonder if I stood stock still if they would start attaching gold leaf to me? You know, pay for the trip...
