Saturday’s Private Tour

The floating market

Venturing outside of Bangkok gets slightly more difficult for the self-guided, particularly just over a weekend trip. So, with a 6am wake up call and quick breakfast, we were off in our large but comfortable Toyota van with driver and our tour guide, Wendy.


The view from James Bond's seat

We drove for an hour south of the city before coming to the launching point for our floating market tour. Exiting our vehicle, we took what would be our second of three forms of transportation for the morning, the “James Bond boat.” Apparently since Gold Finger was filmed in Thailand in the 1960’s, one of the traditional Thai boats has become known for its use in the film, at least according to our tour guide. Whatever the name, the boat could fly and gave us perhaps our biggest AH! WE’RE IN THAILAND moment of the weekend. Scooting down the water at about 40 miles an hour for minutes on end, we shot deeply into the wilderness of Thailand. Every few minutes we would have to slow to a near halt and make a turn, as the canals were tight and all the corners hard ninety-degree angles. Eric took some great video from this portion of the trip, but I am not sure how to post it here, so if you’d like to see e-mail me.


You can see the steam in the air.



After a few minutes of what seemed solo boating, we began to fall in line with other boats and it was evident that we, along with half of the tourists in Bangkok, were approaching the floating market. Although touristy now, the floating market in Thailand has a long tradition coming from the days when local farmers and villagers would meet in the morning on their boats to exchange their goods and enjoy freshly made meals. The market that we found had remaining hints of quaint practicality but was beginning to boil over with a shrink-wrapped tourism. Our treasure purchases ended up to be food purchases rather than trinkets. The boats inched along full of people, as temporary lanes of traffic emerged and sellers peddled their goods – all this with the surreal feeling of doing it all while floating. I still have an occasional craving for our first and best purchase – coconut pancakes. Yum, yum, and yeow! These small sweet pancakes came served in a banana leaf and had a hint of coconut milk. The other food we enjoyed was purchased for us by our guide – a pomelo – a fruit, similar to the grapefruit in its tartness but slightly sweeter and also plumper and firmer in its composition. The segments we had came wrapped, clean, and easy to devour.


Cooking from above


The tourist merchandise was set up on the side of the canals for easy pointing and purchase.

Returning from the floating market, our tour made a stop at a handcraft market. Apparently as more and more of the local crafts have become subjugated by factory produced items, someone came up with the idea of bringing local craftsman together in one working location where people could view the traditional production processes and also purchase goods. Although it felt a little forced, we were fascinated to see some of the wood carving action. Many of the pieces were made from teak wood (large murals that took between half a year and a year for two men to complete) and impressively massive chairs made from entire stumps and roots of local trees. We only purchased a couple of small coconut bowls but there was a wide variety of ready to ship handicrafts that were tempting.


The detail on these carvings was amazing.


A big chair


Temple of Ramma IV

Our last stop for the day with the guide was at the Temple of Ramma IV. It plays host to the tallest chedi in Thailand and may have been my favorite of the temples that we saw. I don’t know what it was about it, perhaps it was just having a really good guide with us that could explain everything, but it was fascinating. The bell-like shape on the horizon was just the beginning of its splendor. Inside the chedi that was visible was another older chedi, completely encased but still standing. There was a functioning Buddhist school on site and the most complete selection of the different Buddha poses that are meaningful for the Thais that I saw. Our guide gave a really good explanation that I think I will expand up for my next post.


A close-up of the chedi.


The open-air school room at the temple.

From there, it was back to Bangkok, a long drive with good traffic, and a really long drive on the day we went. It was interesting though to see great fields of salt being harvested for export and also some small manufacturing plants. It was also nice to have the time to ask our guide all of our accumulated questions from the previous day.

Thailand – Friday PM

The chedis at Wat Pho

To recap our Friday AM adventures in Bangkok – slow waking, walk through city, tuk tuk ride, Royal Temple, Golden Buddha, and our first reclining Buddha.

On finishing our hour solo tour through the Royal Temple, we found our tuk tuk and driver waiting in the shade. While a nice gesture, we should have been suspicious at that point, as our driver obviously saw us as an opportunity for profit. We zigged, we zagged, and many minutes later, completely disoriented, we emerged from the back streets of Bangkok at a run-down boat landing. Our request to go to the Grand Palace had been partially fulfilled, as the final destination of the boat was the Palace but only after a couple hour canal tour.

As we scrambled to figure out this non-guide book adventure, we ended up in a situational alliance with two German women that found themselves in the same position that we were. Fortunately and unfortunately for us, the women had several more weeks travel experience in Thailand and were ready for a resolution to their plans. They quickly took charge of negotiations with the slightly shady boat entrepreneur, and soon we set sail on a boat together and with some understanding of at least where we were headed. And thus, the canal tour began.

Our German friends had spent the prior month traveling all through Thailand. One was a teacher and the other worked for Berlitz, a company that teaches languages to business persons. In their mid and early thirties, they were fun companions who were making the most of their adventures. Eric and I sat to the side of the boat and they sat in the middle facing forward. Our canal tour boat was long and semi-squat by comparison to other boats that we would take in future days in Thailand. Our driver was a Thai man who sat towards the back of the boat, elevated by cushions as he steered us through the wide river that headed south out of Bangkok toward the canals that jut off in every direction and create a series of house-lined streets of water.

From the river, we could see many of Bangkok’s elite hotels but also the remnants of Bangkok’s pre-Asian financial crisis boom. Enormous skyscrapers sat incomplete, outlined only by concrete pillars as if children’s coloring book pages that were never filled in properly. I had heard and read about the impacts of the crash, but here I was starting to see a reality so influenced by the bad policies of many years prior. From unfinished buildings to an elevated subway system expansion line that was finding use more as a trellis than as a weight-bearing structure. If Bangkok continues to recover, these blemishes could soon be erased but hopefully the lessons they signify not forgotten.



The tour took us by our first “floating market” about 30 minutes in, although this was really just a single floating souvenir shop. One of the highlights of the tour was to be a stop at the Snake Market, but it was too much for us. We disembarked to look around but were met with a very sketchy zoo/circus-like environment that was not appealing. We could see a man fully wrapped with a boa snake but were frightened off by the very poor conditions that the animals appeared to be in. In particular, there was a dog that appeared to be so sick as not to stand up and thus was soiling itself. It was a troubling sight, yet, for all the problems of the city, there was so much joy and positive action that it’s hard to think that the Thais aren’t making progress.


A passing boat on the canal.


A few second later.

The boat tour ended up lasting closer to 2 hours but dropped us at the promised destination of the streets near the Grand Palace and Wat Pho – a set of temples with the big reclining Buddha and the national Thai massage school. After some confusion in finding the entrance to Wat Pho (a scene that confirmed an underlying practice of using decoy people on the street to confuse tourists thoroughly and drive them towards paid tours), we set about exploring the site which dates back to the 16th century. It’s enormous chedis are ornately decorated with painted tile and other forms and it plays host to the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand.


Wat Pho chedis


The largest reclining Buddha in Thailand. The bumps in the foreground are toes.

The Grand Palace also held the Emerald Buddha, which seemed to hold more religious significance for visitors than the reclining Buddha. It is this Buddha that the king ceremoniously changes the dressing (yes, the statues have actual robes) on seasonally in large national ceremonies. We saw this ceremonial robe changing occurring at other locations in Thailand, also not by monks (or royalty) as young men in t-shirts were called upon for the act.


The Emerald Buddha is inside this building.

I must note the dress customs at the Grand Palace. Many Buddhists places of worship strictly enforce rules that require the covering of the legs and the shoulders. For us, that meant renting a pair of pull over pants. Although not stylish, at least we were provided an easy option for meeting their standards while not baking to death in the heat of the day. Many women traveling in Thailand carry a shawl to put over their shoulders if going sleeveless.




Food market.

A short walk through the food market left me feeling less than hungry in the heat of the day, and Eric wisely suggested we return to the hotel for some rest. After hailing a taxi and negotiating what we would later find out to be only about 50% more than we should have paid, we were off for a long and slow ride through the traffic jammed streets. Luckily, the Thais seemed much more willing to wait quietly in traffic. Such a jam in Hong Kong would have left us with major headaches.

We had a relaxed late afternoon, Eric taking dinner by the pool and I in the room with some rest, before leaving for Siam Center via the Sky Train – Bangkok’s monorail. Though there were a variety of cinemas and stores in this hip couple of blocks, we didn’t find much that enticed us to just enjoy the walk there and back and the eventual return to clean sheets.


A school bus.

Labour Tickets

I was struck today by an advertisement when I was searching for airfares on the airline we use most often for travel the U.S. and within Asia - Cathay Pacific. As Hong Kong's airline, they have a lot of direct flights from Hong Kong to places around the world.

What struck me so much was their advertisement for "Exclusive Labour Fares to Manila" and "Exclusive Labour Fares to Jakarta / Surabaya." These are discount tickets for the maids that live in and support so many Hong Kong families. The fares are to be purchased by employers for Filipino / Indonesian labour working in Hong Kong and are open only to maids.

The "labour" lines are often apparent here, but I can't imagine a company in the U.S. offering a fare that was only for service-employees. Perhaps I am wrong. Also, these flights must be subsidized either by the airline who receives a great deal of business trafffic from the employers of the maids or the government, as these prices are very reasonable by Hong Kong standards. Also, notice that they make a special point of allowing extra luggage.

http://www.cathaypacific.com/hk/offers/online/0,,41094-70048,00.html?WAcampid=HKO_Offers_LabourfaresJan

Thailand – Friday AM

Friday we woke slowly and took a nice breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant. It was a magical setting with tall ceilings and big shuttered windows framing a pond below with lotus flowers. I have to note for my nephew the honey they had for breakfast. It was straight off a real honeycomb. They set the honeycomb on a stand and let the honey drip onto a plate where you could scoop it up. Pretty cool.

We decided to start the day off with a good walk so that I could observe and absorb, but after about 20 minutes, we realized that the distance we had set out on was much further than we expected. Crossing one of the busy Bangkok streets, we were met by a “journalist” who recommended that we alter our path and take a tuk tuk. I use quotes here as we learned later that day that few people in Bangkok were completely who they presented themselves as. This gentleman was very nice and helpful to us, so I believe he was telling the truth. On his advice, we took off on a tuk tuk motorcycle taxi for the Royal Temple which is most famously home to a solid gold Buddha statue – one of the few in Thailand. Interestingly, the Thais didn’t realize they had a solid gold Buddha until they were moving was they thought was concrete Buddha statue and the concrete cracked and the gold Buddha inside dropped straight out. They suspect that during a time of unrest that a town’s people encased the Buddha in concrete for safe keeping but the owner’s of that secret must have passed away before divulging it to the world. Who knows how many other hidden treasures are out there?


Our tuk tuk and driver.




The streets of Bangkok were a blur to us on the fast-moving tuk tuk.

Acting on perhaps our only honest advice of the weekend, we entered the Royal Temple which was comprised by three large buildings that we could see and was largely absent of visitors. While inside the temple with the Golden Buddha, we met a very nice gentleman who was living Australia but home visiting and purchasing goods for a Thai restaurant he ran there. After a long and insightful conversation, including great detail about a gem and jewelry outlet that he and the journalist both recommended, we set about exploring the rest of the site and met our first reclining Buddha statue.


The temple with the Golden Buddha.


The Golden Buddha.

I have seen now it seems so many Buddha statues, but am each time amazed at the variety of interpretations. In the West, it was always my impression that there was one Buddha icon – chubby and happy – but in reality, there are many, many Buddha representations, each representing a historical interpretation and adaptation of the local culture and society. In Thailand, the Buddhas were skinny, but I will go into that more later. The reclining Buddha is a very popular pose for the Thai, and one that for some reason was often represented in larger than life fashion. Meant to capture the Buddha just before he reached enlightenment, the reclining figure portrayed for me a bit more relaxed satisfaction that I am used to in icons like it.

After taking off our shoes at the door, we entered the doorway of a building that may have been built around the figure with which we were met. At a height of more than 12 feet and a length that I can only guess must have been 50 yards, this reclining Buddha was massive. An elderly gentleman held watch over the place and asked us for a donation and to my surprise proceeded to hand us back a basket full of small coins. He had apparently just broken our donation into smaller denominations and was asking us to participate in the rituals appropriate. The coins were meant to be placed one or two in each of the metal bowls that lined the “bed” of the reclining Buddha, and we think these bowls represented the monks that were associated with the Royal Temple. The sound of metal was soft and entrancing was we made our deposits and slowly worked from mid-section to feet. The next ritual was that of offering gold. This was perhaps my favorite as it really makes you feel like you are forever a part of a place. Our elderly guide provided us each with a piece of gold leaf paper which we could step forward and actually place onto a Buddha statue. A hard press and moment of disbelief later and our marks were apparent. It is an amazing thing to be included in a ritual, especially one as participatory as this once.


Eric making a deposit with the reclining Buddha in the background.


Eric placing his leaf on the small Buddha statue in front of the reclining Buddha.

This temple is closed to non-Thais most of the year, and it was only our luck that we were able to enter and explore. In the space of the morning, I had met more random people on the street than I have met in all of our time in Hong Kong. It was very striking.

Postcard from Macau

The Ruins of St. Paul's at Night

Many a Moon, Many a Festival

The festivals and traditions of Hong Kong (and China) are only just beginning to actually come into some context for us. Their holidays are many in comparison to the U.S. calendar, but their work weeks are very long. We are about to celebrate the Mid-autumn Moon Festival.

To date, all that we have known about this festival is that it involves cakes. Perhaps it has been the rush of time or our glazed focuses upon hearing the word "cake", but we haven't had a chance to dig much deeper than a consumer's understanding. According to a Hong Kong tourism website, "the festival commemorates a 14th Century uprising against the Mongols. In a cunning plan, the rebels wrote the call to revolt on pieces of paper and embedded them in cakes that they smuggled to compatriots." Ah, the mooncakes. It is making more sense.

In any case, it's a festival and a time to celebrate. We are excited to try the cakes with ground lotus and sesame seed paste, egg-yolk and other ingredients, and hope to also enjoy some of the lanterns and festival offerings. Tonight in Macau (and each saturday night this month) they are hosting a fireworks competition to coincide with the festival. We hope to go, but we'll see.

For a schedule of large HK festivals:

http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/heritage/festivals/index.jhtml#fest

For more information on the Mid-Autumn Festival:

http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/heritage/festivals/he_fest_mida.jhtml

From Grand to Grime

Thursday night last week, Eric and I flew to Bangkok, Thailand, for a weekend getaway. As my first real travel within Asia since we’ve been here full-time, I was excited for a change of scenery, especially to a place that Eric had given rave reviews from previous visits. Thailand is relatively close by Asia standards for a weekend trip (only a 2 hour flight) and is known as a place of escape in HK, offering cheap, luxurious beach packages, even in the months following the horrible tsunami. We steered towards Bangkok instead, choosing to see the city but stay in a nice five-star hotel, the Sukhothai, in the heart of the city’s new business district.




The Sukhothai

As we departed the plane, the subtle and stark differences between locales were apparent. Bangkok’s airport holds none of the striking views and vaulted ceilings of HK’s, resembling instead a plastic, molded box, with low-ceilings, Logitech digital cameras on the passport control counters, and few of the amenities that a world city offers in an airport today. I should note that from my experience, Los Angeles is the major exception to this rule as its airport is much neglected by international standards. But I digress…

Leaving the passport control, we were quickly transported to an odd world of prestige and beauty within a society and a country straddling the lines of modernity and poverty. A hotel representative met us on exit, led us to a waiting luxury sedan and driver, and before I quite realized what was happening, we were sitting, drinking cold waters, wiping our faces with the cold towels provided for cleansing, and watching the intermittent bright lights of Bangkok stream past from the above ground freeway. It was a quiet moment of contemplation and absorption for us, with the driver speeding forward as if propelled by the weight of his captain-style hat and the luxury of a Mercedes.

I have never traveled in what would be considered a developing country before. I actually suppose that I still haven’t by some definitions, but suffice it to say, Thailand was the closest that I have gotten to date. I also have never stayed at a five-star hotel before; the odd combination of both firsts on one trip is something that I am still trying to frame in my mind. Reality by day; luxury by night – that became our routine for a couple of days. I must admit, while I struggled deeply with this in the beginning, I greatly appreciated it by the end of the weekend as the exploring simply wore me out. Coming back to a safe place really helped to get through and rejuvenate for the next day’s explorations. So, our Thailand trip had us with our left feet in reality and our right in paradise.


The view from our seat in the tuk tuk - a motorcycle tax - that is popular in Bangkok. We took several the first full day we were exploring.