October 18th, 2024
Thailand is a country of 66 million people, 94% of whom are
Buddhist so it’s not surprising that there are a lot of Buddhist temples in
Bangkok. Wat means temple in the Thai language. I’m not religious, but I figured I probably
should at least check out a few wats while I’m here. Wat else
to do?
The efficient and clean Bangkok metro:
Standing 86 meters tall, I decided to start with Wat Arun that Pam and I saw from
our boat tour yesterday. The temple got
its name from the Hindu god Aruna, and Arun means dawn so it is the “Temple of
Dawn”. I hopped on the metro and got off
one stop further than Pam and I did for the boat tour, which popped me out on
the other side of the Chao
Phraya River. It was a short walk to
the wat and as I got closer, I noticed more and more shops with fancy traditional
Thai dresses. I then clued in that many
tourists rent them to be able to take some photos in the temple all decked out. For those of us not renting a fancy dress,
there was still a dress code (as there is for all wats) to dress respectfully
with knees and shoulders covered.
The main prang:
The temple is free for Thais to enter but foreign tourists had
to pay 300 baht ($12.50…very reasonable).
I had read online that it was wise to visit the wat early in the day as
it was less busy, and not so hot, well at least compared to the afternoons as
it was still cooking in my books. I
arrived around 10 am and there was already a decent crowd but I’m sure it could
be worse. Walking around the main “prang”
(a stupa like pagoda), it felt like I was walking a gauntlet. There were so many dressed up ladies posing
for photographs that you had to pause here and there as to not ruin the
shot. Some of the photographers were
taking too long and I was not the only tourist who got fed up and quickly walked
between the model and the cameraman.
There was a set of super steep steps that you could climb to the first level
of the biggest prang. I’m sure there’s
been a few people tripping and falling on their way down.
Wat's up?
I checked out some of the surrounding buildings, most of which housed a Buddha statue…or twenty.
Hard to see in the pic...but it looks a bit "nippy" out for this statue.
About
half an hour later, I was ready to move on to the next wat, so I bought a
ticket to cross the river on one of the tourist boats.
The next, and last, temple that I chose to visit was Wat Pho, which is also known
as the “Temple of the Reclining Buddha”.
I was looking forward to seeing this Buddha as it was different than all
the other sitting Buddhas I’d seen as it was lying down on its side with one
arm propping up its head…plus it was huge, 15 meters high and 46 meters long!
I wandered around the grounds, poking my head in the odd
building. I thought I’d found the place as it was the biggest structure, with tall white
columns all around the structure. I
entered…only to find yet another golden Buddha in the typical cross legged
sitting pose. It was an impressive one,
but where’s the lazy guy?
Buddha Buddha Buddha Buddha Buddha...
Nope.
Overhearing a tour guide with a couple in their early 30s
mention that they would head towards the reclining Buddha, I knew the general direction
to head. Finally, I found it…and it was
impressive. However, it was so big that
it was quite hard to find a location to photograph it. There were a few sweet spots, which caused
informal queues to form with tourists waiting patiently to get their pic that
they wanted. I waited in a few of these line-ups,
and it was worth it.
Okay, I was now “templed out” and it was already 2 o’clock. I tried to find a place for lunch but opted
for a snack and a Sprite that I bought in one of the ubiquitous 7-11s. I have to admit that I lingered for a while
in the lovely airconditioned store in order to attempt to lower my core
temperature.
Yesterday I realized that I couldn’t find my Kobo e-reader. Damn, it must have slipped out of my backpack
on one of my flights. That’s the second
time I’ve done that in the last three years.
I had just downloaded the book “The Bridge Over the River Kwai” as I
plan on heading to Kanchanaburi, my first foray out of the capital, and that is
where that story is based on. I did some
research online and it looked like finding an e-reader was going to be a bit of
a challenge in Bangkok…but I’ve got to give it a try.
I took the metro to an area with a few shopping malls. Exiting the metro, my phone battery died due
to all of the Buddha photos I had taken (was this bad karma?!?). It’s amazing how dependent we have become on
these devices. I had a charge cable and
had taken what I thought was a battery pack out of my small bag with all of my
electronics before leaving in the morning, but it turned out that I had pulled
out a hard drive instead…not very useful Dave.
So I had to resort to actually asking a local where I needed
to go, as we used to do in the past. I
asked this young university student and he confirmed that I was heading in the
right direction. I started to walk away
and he called out “But it’s quite a long ways, you may want to take a bus.” Having checked the map before my phone died,
I knew it was only about a kilometre away, but perhaps to him that was far.
Entering the MBK centre, I immediately noticed that shops
were organized according to what they sold.
One floor was just jewellery and watches, another was clothing. I headed up to the 4th floor where
the electronics were and oh my, there were so many little stalls with what
looked to be the same thing over and over, mostly smartphones and smartphone
accessories. The odd person behind the
counter would ask me what I was looking for and when I responded “Kobo, an
e-reader” they looked dumbfounded. Surprisingly
I did find one stall where the guy pulled out a Kindle. Okay, that’s a start. However, it was listed at 9000 baht or $375,
which is probably more than double what I paid for my Kobo. Instantly he lowered the price to 7500 but I
told I’d keep looking around as I would prefer to get a Kobo since I had
purchased books that would only work on a Kobo.
I kept wandering around and noticed a small stall
There was another shopping mall that had a big store called
B2S. They also had the same Kindle, at
the 9000 baht price, but there was no bargaining to be had there. However, they did have a case for the Kindle
so I bought that, knowing that the stall in the other place didn’t. I walked back to MBK and tried my best at
haggling the price down, but that’s definitely not one of my strong
points. I tried for 6000, showing the
guy a website from Best Buy back in Canada with a much cheaper Kindle
price. He countered with 7000 and I decided
screw it, I didn’t want to quibble anymore and bought it.
The skies decided to open up as I began the walk back to the
metro. I’m travelling with a super small
umbrella, so I put a rain cover over my backpack and tried to keep my tiny brolly
over my head but as the rain started to pick up, my shoes and shorts were
getting wet. I reached the metro station
and thought it was interesting that there were long plastic bags hanging off
the rail at the top of the escalator and people were closing up their
umbrellas, putting them in a bag and then heading down to the trains. I guess it lessens the chances of someone
slip on a wet floor…but it seemed like a waste of plastic. In just a few days here, it’s obvious that Thais
don’t really care about the consequences of high plastic usage to the planet as
there is hardly any recycling done here.
Hopefully with time that will change.
After a much needed shower at my place (this is a country where
a minimum of two showers a day is necessary), I decided to head out to an
Italian restaurant in my neighborhood.
After striking out on my last two Thai meals, and figuring that my best
chance of some other non-Thai cuisine that might be decent would be in Bangkok. I opted for a pizza and it wasn’t bad…but
nothing to write home about, but I guess enough to write on my blog about.
I was exhausted from all of the walking I did but it was yet another good day. Returning to my room, I cracked open my new Kindle and the case, only to find out that I’d bought the wrong sized case for this Kindle. Oh well, you just can’t win them all. Tomorrow’s another day.
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