Saturday in Bangkok!

Sawat de kaa!

Yesterday turned out to be a fabulously exhausting day. My roommate, Eunice, had an idea to go to downtown Bangkok to see Thailand's largest reclining Buddha. Because it was a religious place, i had to dress a bit different, which means that I had my first experience wearing jeans in the humid weather. It actually wasn't too bad, though, as there comes a point when it doesn't really matter what you wear; you are simply hot. Anyway, Eunice along with Steve and Andrea (a couple from Canada) took the ferry down to Bangkok.

Travelling on the ferry was interesting. We saw children jumping in and swimming. We saw fish poking out and making ripples. We also saw trash littering the banks. Ferry travel is pretty popular, and it is almost like a version of the BART, as the destinations are limited, but the ferries go on regular schedules. We did need to make sure that we boarded the one with the orange flag, because there were a few different lines that made different stops along the banks.

One incident that happened on the boat was when Eunice was trying to show me her shoes. She propped her foot up on the seat next to her, with her leg straight out. This essentially flipped off the entire other side of the boat, and I quickly told her to put her foot down, but not before we received quite a few stern glares. Fortunately, we are clearly farang (foreigners) so they knew (I hope) that it was unintentional.

When we reached our stop, took took drivers (small motorized carriages) descended and tried to get us to hire them. We could see the temple we were headed towards, but a driver tried to convince us that it was a 20 minute walk. Yeah right. We walked there in about 5-10 minutes.

The Buddha was incredibly large and plated with gold. I will upload pictures when I can, but I am still without a camera until my paycheck comes at the end of the month. :( Seriously, though, it was about the same size, if not bigger, than the huge stature of Ramses III that I saw in Egypt. Truly, there are no words to convey how massive it was.

After seeing the statue, we wandered around the temple, looking at various shrines and taking pictures (them not me). We got a bit turned around and ended up getting taken in to be blessed by a monk. At that point, we couldn't refuse without being rude. So, we were sprinkled with holy water, gave him a small donation, and continued on.

By this point, we were hot, tired, and hungry. I put in my two bhat and requested that we find an air conditioned restaurant to eat in. Eunice struck up a conversation with a representative from the tourist police by the pier about where we should go. When he found out I was American, he immediately said, 'What's up!' He then pointed to himself and said that he was called 'PoPo.' I have no idea what crazy tourist corrupted him, but I'm guessing it was some wannabe ghetto guy, possibly from California. ;)

It was actually quite a good thing that she talked to him, because he seriously gave us the hook-up! He had a took took driver agree to take us to a restaurant and then to a few shops before ending up in the market strip that we wanted to get to. About 3-4 hrs of service for 50 bhat, which translates to about $1.50. Yeah, pretty incredible.

The restaurant was nice, and had great food. I'm finding that to be a common theme, because I haven't had a bad meal yet! The lady was nice and helped us practice our Thai a bit. Thak koon kaa! (Thank you!) It was funny that they didn't turn on the fans until we came in. Then again, the door wasn't even unlocked until we got there!

After dinner, we went to see a jewelry shop. They had stations where you could see the stones being shaped and fitted into jewelry, as well as displays of uncut stones next to their polished counterparts. It was very interesting, but the best part was in the back, because that was where the finished jewelry pieces were. They were stunning, and really cheap for gemstones. I may or may not need to buy a few things there before I come home. Presents anyone? ;)

Later on, the driver took us to a few 'high fashion' shops. If we stopped by and browsed for about 5 minutes, he received a commission. He was nice, so we allowed the salesmen to hound us about making tailored clothes and suits for us, but we told them that we weren't tourists and that we needed to get a paycheck first before we could buy anything. Interestingly enough, it seems that all of the clothing shops (at least the ones we went to) were owned by Indians, not Thais.

After the shops, we went to the huge touristy market place, where we were again assaulted by street vendors. My personal favorite was when one guy was pestering Steve, who told him that we weren't tourists but here to work. His reply was 'so are we!' Food, clothing, accessories, massages, and even tattoos were everywhere. My favorite was a little shop that did fish foot massages. These tiny fish that are about the length of a finger swim up and eat the dead skin cells from your feet. I put my hand in to try it, and it felt very interesting. I'm pretty sure I felt their little tongues! Sometime before I leave, I am definitely doing that at least once!

Steve and Andrea wanted to look at a lot of art shops to get a wedding gift for his sister, so we ended up seeing a lot of art. There was one shop where everyone there was deaf. It actually made things easier, as most of our communication needs to be nonverbal anyway! Plus, I speak more sign language than Thai at the moment. I was at least able to say thank you to them in ASL.

As their art search was still unsuccessful, they continued going into shops, while Eunice and I decided to take a break. A street cafe had a singer who was playing popular songs on his guitar. He was pretty good, so we sat down to have a drink while we waited for our Canadians to finish their purchases. Interesting (and helpful!) thing about ordering here is that every item on the menu has a number next to it, so I was able to order and practice my numbers in Thai at the same time! At first I thought I'd done it wrong, however, because I ordered a daiquiri and I got a margarita. Turns out, though, that that's what they considered to be a daiquiri. Oh well, it was still pretty good.

Now, the real adventure of the evening was getting home! We piled into a taxi, as the ferry service had already closed, and did our best to get home. Eunice had done this one other time before, so she was our official/unofficial spokesperson. There were a few false starts and moments of confusion, but we ended up in the right place and without getting lost. This, of course, I feel was largely due to the fact that I was not responsible for getting us home. If I had a super talent, it would be the ability to get lost and disoriented beyond all hope.

We pulled up in front of the school, and got out. Eunice and I were pretty hungry at that time, so we said goodnight to Steve and Andrea and headed down to see if one of our favorite cafes was still open. Sadly, it was not, but we found another street vendor and ordered from her. There was a bit of confusion with the language barrier, but with pointing and limited Thai, we were able to order squid and crab Pad Thai. Then, of course, we had to stop by the 7-11 (which are everywhere by the way!) to get a fanta. We ended up eating and watching Emma with our other roommate, Naomi, in my room. The movie was great, but we were exhausted, and ended up turning it off halfway through.

Whew! What an exhausting day!

And don’t even get me started on Sunday… ;)