Trip to Bangkok, Thailand

On my way to India, I had a brief stopover of a day in Bangkok. I arrived in bangkok airport late in the night and my connecting flight was the next day evening. So I had enough time to see a few of the "wats" (temples) in Bangkok. I went over to the informatino desk, got a bunch of hotel names, called them up and decided on a hotel name. Most people here did not know English, but using keywords and signs it was not very hard to communicate. I found a cab and told him the hotel name. He kept talking to me throughout the trip though I understood only 10 percent of the conversation. He asked me if I had a wife. When I said No, he kept asking me if I wanted a "Hamia". After sometime I realized he was telling me that he could help me get a prostitute. He took me to some other hotel, not what I had asked him to. Anyway I checked in and soon after I got into my room, the manager called me up and proposed that he could arrange for a prostitute. I politely declined.

Next day I looked at the map and a tourist book and figured out some places I would have time to see before my flight time. I rented a "tuk tuk" (autorikshaw in India) to get around bangkok. The traffic in Bangkok was not too different from that in Banaras or Bangalore in India. The streets had a large picture of the King everywhere.



I first went to Wat Phra Kaew - the temple of the Emerald Buddha. It is a an absolutely beautiful temple. The decorations in the temple are exquisite and made of gold. The detailed carvings are something you can keep admiring for hours. I spent around 2 hours here and it was wonderful. There was a ritual of lighting insense, which I did.



There was large dome entirely made of gold which was absolutely amazing. After this I went to Wat Arun. It is also called the temple of dawn and lies across the river Chao Phraya. I had to cross the river to reach the temple in a boat. The carvings in the temple are fantastic. The steps to this temple are extremely steep and not easy to climb. It was already afternoon by now and I was feeling very hungry. So I had some coconut water and then the person split open the coconut and gave me the coconut inside to eat. It was so soft it melted in my mouth and very sweet and delicious.






After Wat Arun, I went to visit the Kings palace. The Kings palace was exquisite like the wat Phra Kaew. There were carvings out of gold everywhere. There was an English guided tour that I took and the guide took us through various parts of the palace and explaining various interesting facts. That is apparently the window where the King stands for a public appearances sometimes.

Fortunately, that afternoon there was a cultural show as well, where several dancers demonstrated the traditional dance art-forms of Thailand. The classical dances were extremely graceful and elegant, some of them reminded me of Manipuri dance in India. The dancers were dressed in very elaborately decorated dresses embelished with gold.

Besides the classical art forms there were also some very nice lighthearted folks dances with couples and finally some traditional martial art form from Thailand were also demonstrated.

After the Kings grand palace, I visited the temple of the reclining buddha also called Wat Pho. This temple had an enormous buddha entirely gold plated. The buddha lies reclining and the icon is about 50mts long and 15 mts high! This was by far that most exquisite buddha icon I had ever seen. The temple is definitely awe-inspiring. I wish I had taken photos here but I could not. By the time I finished Wat Pho, I was already running late for my flight and wanted to buy a shirt for Nannagaru. On the way back the tuk tuk took me to a shopping center and I bought my dad a nice Thai shirt. I had to rush back to the hotel packed up my stuff. I must have handsomely paid the tuk tuk huy since he was quite happy with the number of bhats I paid him. I took a taxi and it was a close call at the airport. Nevertheless all is well that ends well and I reached Hyderabad successfully. It had been a great trip to Thailand.