Thurs 1/15
The Japan portion of my trip had been meticulously planned. I arrived in Tokyo with a five page spreadsheet detailing my plans and travel for each day, augmented by about twenty-five additional pages that were the result of asking AI to sanity-check my plans, add restaurants, and flesh out details on timing and transportation. I must say, the Japan portion of the trip had worked out perfectly with everything having gone exactly as planned.
Here's the planning I had done for Thailand: Nothing. Zero. Zilch. The idea was that I was going to meet up with my old friend Peter, who lives in Bangkok, as soon as I got there, and he had said, "Don't worry - I've got everything taken care of. You just show up and get to your hotel. I'll take it from there." When my flight arrived in Bangkok I turned on my phone and immediately received a message from Peter saying "slight change of plans", as he had just been admitted to the hospital due to a kidney stone emergency. He expected to have a procedure done that afternoon and to be discharged in the morning, good as new and ready to go sightseeing. I have enough experience with hospital stays to know that he was being overly optimistic. Even if he really did get out the next day it wasn't going to be early, and he likely wasn't going to be feeling 100%. It was looking like my Thailand experience was going to be a little different than expected.
Fortunately, I hadn't planned on staying with Pete, as while his apartment is lovely, it's tiny with no sleeping room for an extra person unless he was looking to share a bed, which he wasn't, at least not with me. Pete lives in Sukhumvit, a lively, upscale neighborhood of Bangkok. I was staying just up the street from his apartment. He recommended that I perhaps take a walk, maybe go to one of the local shopping malls, or go get a massage (he made it clear that massages are available in a full range of MPA ratings from G through NC-17).
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| Airport taxi, Bangkok |
My flight had arrived in the late afternoon and by the time I cleared immigration, sat through a 90 minute taxi ride to Sukhumvit (traffic in Bangkok is horrible), and digested Pete's news, I really wasn't in the mood to do go out. I settled into my room in the very nice Sukhumvit Sturbridge hotel, and sought out dinner at the first place I could find, which turned out to be the most excellent Waki Waki vegetarian sushi restaurant. Honestly, I could have been happy eating every meal there it was so good.
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Waki Waki vegetarian sushi.
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Fri 1/16I’d been doing a lot of walking while traveling, but no intense
cardio, so in the morning I went to the hotel’s gym and ran on the treadmill
while I waited for Peter to be discharged from the hospital. The
humidity in Bangkok is such that one gets pretty sweaty even in an air-conditioned
gym. I’m typically not a schvitzer, but by the end of my workout I was soaked!
Then came the (expected) bad news: Peter called to say that he was in a lot of pain and they were going to keep
him another night so they could give him heavy pain meds and keep him under
observation. He suggested that I go and visit some of the big temples in Bangkok on my own. I had read in my guidebook that while Bangkok has an extensive public transportation system, it's hard to figure out, as it is fragmented into the BTS and MRT, which are two separate systems which require separate tickets. To get to the main temples Google Maps, which had been very helpful in Japan, recommended some hour-long local bus route. I wish Google Maps had a feature of "find me the best route which involves only one train, even if it means a 30 minute walk", because that would have gotten me there using the BTS. Also, Bangkok intimidated me more than Tokyo or Kyoto, and I was hesitant to try and navigate it on my own without any research. So, I took a taxi, which took an hour because of the nasty traffic. Thailand has an app called Grab, which is their equivalent of Uber, except that unlike Uber, the fare you're quoted on Grab is just the beginning - it seems like there's always some sort of add-on which drives the fare higher than quoted: tolls, airport pickup fees, or some mysterious other fee. I suspect that I got overcharged on a lot of rides, but the except for one time the dollar figures were peanuts so I didn't sweat it - but it was uncomfortable.
When the taxi let me off, I still really didn't know where I was or where I was going to, but I sensed that I was in a tourist area and that people were headed in a particular direction. I had been a little anxious, since as I mentioned, Bangkok was a little intimidating and I was utterly unprepared for this portion of the trip. I also always carry with me that old-time New Yorker's sense that every place is dangerous (in fact, Thailand is fairly safe). I was able to relax a little once I realized I was around the tourist attractions - the crowds and security made me feel a little better.
I followed the crowds and soon found myself at Wat Phra Kaeo, (the Temple of the Emerald Buddha), and the adjacent Imperial Palace. I actually thought I had told the driver to go to Wat Pho, but never mind, they're within walking distance of one another. Taxis in Thailand are an adventure.
Well, wow. After a week visiting the sparse, meditative, Zen-like (in some cases, actually Zen, not just Zen-like) Buddhist temples of Japan, Wat Phra Kaeo was mind-blowing. It's like someone had asked the Buddha what he would like his temples to look like on a day when he had taken some acid and was in the middle of listening to one of his most psychedelic Grateful Dead bootleg tapes. The over-the-top ornamentation, the colors, the scale, the overall excess - quite frankly, while standing there I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. My photos don't do this place justice. Wat Phra Kaeo is the most sacred Buddhist temple in all of Thailand, and boy, they clearly spared no effort in building it.
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| Several of the eight prang (those corncob-lookin' spires), each of which represents an aspect of Buddhism |
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| I believe this is The Prasat Phra Thep Bidon, the Royal Pantheon |
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| Mythological birdman figure (Asuarapaksi) |
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| Giant guardian statue |
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| The Phra Mondop, or library |
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| Detail of the Phra Suwannachedi, showing one of the giants which protects it. A chedi is a monument which holds relics |
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| Temple |
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| Temple guardian |
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| Temple guardians |
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| Temple |
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| Portico of the Phra Ubosot, or ordination hall, which holds the Emerald Buddha |
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| 112 of these Garudas (mighty birdmen) protect the temple |
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| The emerald Buddha, a sacred and venerated item of Thailand. It wears seasonal gold outfits commissioned by various Thai kings |
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| Outside the palace |
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| Palace gate detail |
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| Palace building |
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The palace
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| Tasty, inexpensive lunch |
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| Shops near Wat Phra Kaeo |
After Wat Phra Kaeo, the Imperial Palace was a little bit of a letdown in that you can see it only from the outside (it's still the home of the royal family). If you are a theater fan it is of course interesting as the place where the story behind The King and I took place, and it is beautiful, even if you can't go inside.
After leaving the complex I took a break and bought lunch at a random restaurant across the street. It was my introduction to the fact that even random restaurants in Thailand have great food, and it's dirt cheap. The meal shown above cost about three bucks including a drink. I'll also mention that after the moderately cold weather in Japan (generally, highs in the 50's), the summer-like heat of Thailand felt really hot! I needed that cold drink with lunch.
From the Imperial Palace I walked over to Wat Pho. My tour book said that while Wat Phra Kaeo is an almost too perfect Disney-like example of a Thai Buddhist temple, Wat Pho is a little shaggier. It also gave a recommendation to enter through a side gate, which allows you to pass through the temple grounds and get a feel for the place as a build-up to the main temple.
Wat Pho is another major Thai royal temple (as most readers will already know, its full name is Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan), and is commonly known as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha because, well, there's a freaking ginormous (151 ft) golden reclining Buddha statue in it. It's hard to get a good picture of the statue since it takes up the whole darn building - there's no place where you can step back and really get perspective on it. 'In the pictures below I've done the best I can. Wat Pho is also regarded as the birthplace of traditional Thai Massage, which I can attest can be a religious experience (I'll talk about that more when I describe the massages I got - all G-rated, I assure you). In addition to the jumbo reclining Buddha, the temple's 20 acre complex is home to over 1,000 other Buddha images.
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| The four large stupas of the Phra Maha Chedi Si Rajakarn |
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The reclining Buddha is BIG!
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| Interior of the ubosot (ordination hall) - the main hall. The umbrella over the Buddha represents the authority of Thailand |
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| Buddha images in the cloister |
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| I hope this isn't sacreligous |
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| There are a bunch of whimsical guardian statues, all depicting foreigners. This one represents a Chinese |
man
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| A whimsical statue of a westerner |
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| More Buddha images |
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| Small chedis (reliqueries). These contain ashes of royal family members |
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| Large chedis |
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| The reclining Buddha from the perspective of its feet, which are 9 feet wide by 14 feet long |
At this point it was mid-afternoon and I decided I wanted to make my way back to Sukhumvit before the peak of rush hour. But here's the problem: all of the roads were so busy and large that it was hard to find a place which would make sense for a taxi pickup. Plus I really wanted a restroom stop before the probably hour-long ride back to the hotel. So, I walked for a bit, and a bit more, but neither a restroom nor a mellow street in the right direction appeared. Finally, I pulled out the Flush app, which, yes, is a public toilet finder, and spotted a public restroom on the legendary Khao San Road, about another half mile of walking away.
Khao San Road is Thailand's hub of the hippie backpacker wandering-the-world crowd. It's a party hotspot, home to cheap hotels, hostels, street peddlers, and bars, and has a feel which would be familiar to anyone who's ever hung out in the parking lot at a Dead show. I'm glad I saw it, but it really held no appeal for me, save for the restroom (10 bhat, or about 30 cents, to use it). Having completed that piece of business, I went back to the hotel via a Grab taxi - which was clean, and didn't charge me any extra mystery fees - an anomaly among Grabs.
My hotel was on Soi 24, a fancy street with modern high-rises and hotels. At Peter's recommendation I walked
round to Soi 22, which is just a few blocks away,and decidedly less upscale and
westernized, and had dinner at a semi-outdoors (covered, but no walls) restaurant which he said was his local cheap favorite. Clearly, the place he sent me wasn't offering just a sanitized, westernized menu, since the dishes included crocodile, silkworm pupae, salmon head, frog, and squid. I had chicken (at least that’s what it was listed as on
the menu). A far cry from the Shake Shack and Au Bon Pain on the expat-friendly Sukhumvit Road.
Interestingly, my hotel room had its own combo washer/dryer, and I put in a load at bedtime. I’ve heard that these combo units do a good job of washing but a poor job of drying, which turned out to be accurate. Interestingly, the unit had a bunch of wash cycles, and a wash/dry cycle, but it was impossible to run just a dryer cycle. So what to do about my still damp clothes? In the morning I took my clothes out, started the wash/dry cycle again with the machine empty, and then put the clothes back in when it got to the drying part of the cycle. After a second drying cycle most of the clothes were dry - just a few heavier items needed to be hung up.
Sat 1/17
Mind you, at this time I thought I was just doing one day on my own, and that Peter would be released and ready to go the next day.
Since I was expecting to be able to meet up with Peter when he
was released mid-morning, I set about doing some local things while I waited. I
had breakfast at the hotel, where the breakfast buffet includes both eastern
and western food. This was absolutely the first time I’ve ever had a breakfast of pad thai and
yogurt. I went out to explore the neighborhood some more, including walking a loop of Soi 22, Sukhumvit Road, and Soi 24. Along the way I found a supermarket, where I was able to buy a big bag of the Thai hot pepper I so
love for 80 cents. I love exploring foreign supermarkets. I never really found a large food market in Japan; the closest I came was a small market, and I found the food in Thailand to be far more familiar than in Japan (maybe that's just because its and expat nieghborhood). The place had far more squid-based snacks than the Safeway back home, but both there were plenty of recognizable food items and brands, whereas Japan's food seemed much more different.
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| Western and eastern breakfast foods |
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| One of Sukhumvit's more questionable massage parlors |
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| Snack aisle: salted egg flavored salmon skin, crispy fish, and crunchy squid |
Then my phone dinged: Uh, oh, bad news from Peter. He had
developed an infection and was feeling terrible, suffering with chills and fever. They had started him
on antibiotics and were considering inserting a stent to help his recovery. He
could barely talk. Every time we spoke I’d offer to come visit him, but he kept
waving me off. This was Saturday, and there was no way he was going to be able to make good on our plan to fly up north to the city of Chiang Mai on Sunday. We already had plane tickets and hotel reservations, so he encouraged me to go there on my own. I had done exactly zero advance
research on Chiang Mai since I figured I’d just follow his lead there. I went
back to the hotel to research Chiang Mai in a hurry!
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| Worst product ever! Who would want to repel lizards? They're adorable! |
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| There's a famous kayaking incident where I came out of Low's Lake to find a leech attached to my leg. Today I learned that DEET works on leeches too. |
Sun 1/18In the morning I checked out of my hotel, headed for Chiang Mai. Overall I was traveling fairly light: a single wheelie carry-on bag, my 40L backpack, which is almost the size of another carry-on bag, and a small daypack. I stored the wheelie bag at the hotel in Bangkok, since I'd be back there in a few days, and headed north with just my backpacks.
I was flying Thai Lion Air out of Bangkok's secondary airport, and (I admit this is prejudice on my part) I was expecting some sort of third-world experience with people carrying livestock onto the plane. In truth, the airport is very modern, perhaps more so than the larger Suvarnabhumi international airport; likewise, Thai Lion Air was flying modern 737-800's. I hung out for a bit at the Nok Air lounge (coffee, cookies, and Thai dumplings), then made my way to the gate. The one hour flight was fine, which was a relief after my taxi ride to the airport, which was my one significant rip-off of the trip. I had added a credit card to the Grab app to make payment easier, but when I got to the airport, my cab driver insisted on being paid in cash. Fine, I paid him in cash, but then he also charged me through the app, so I wound up paying double for that cab ride. Considering the scams I'd read of people falling for in Thailand (honestly, who falls for paying large sums of money for "valuable gems" which turn out to be junk?), being ripped off for fifteen bucks I guess isn't so bad. I immediately deleted my payment info from the Grab app to avoid a recurrence of this problem - from then on I'd be sticking to cash. Also, the guy had been a maniac driver. Not my favorite Grab experience.
Peter and I had planned to spend three nights in Chiang Mai. Since I still held out hopes of actually seeing him, I changed my plans to come back to Bangkok after two nights. This cost me a little bit of money as well, since neither the last night of my Chiang Mai hotel nor the flight were refundable at this late date, but I figured that having gone halfway around the world to see my friend, it was worth a little money to make it so I could actually spend some time with him - assuming he was out of the hospital by the time I got back to Bangkok.
Upon arrival in Chiang Mai, I taxied to my hotel (a short ride with a flat rate of TBB
150, or $10), then set out walking. My first destination was a vegetarian Thai restaurant which had
good Happy Cow ratings. There was a wait for a table - generally a good sign. While I was waiting I heard the people at the table closest to me talking about the beautiful floral arrangements at Chabad! I wouldn't have butted into their conversation, but at one point they looked up at me and said, "sorry to keep you waiting! we're almost done," which gave me an opening. They had, indeed been talking about a local Chabad in Chiang Mai (Chabad is a Hasidic Jewish movement focused on outreach and education to connect less observant Jews with their faith). Man, those folks are everywhere!
For my meal I wound up sharing a table with a young Indian couple
and their baby, who kept to themselves except for basic pleasantries.
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| Veg Thai food |
Chaing Mai is a sizable city with a population of about a million, but the heart is really the square mile which was once a walled city, sort of the Greenwich Village of Chiang Mai. Remnants of the old city walls, along with the surrounding moat, remain. Peter had chosen our hotel which, true to his description, was nothing fancy, but was clean and well-situated, being located alongside the bustling Loi Kroh Road, just outside the old city walls near Tha Phae Gate.
As an aside, each of the hotels I stayed in had its own oddities. My Tokyo hotel room had been tiny. In Kyoto, all of the light switches for the room were at the bedside, meaning that when you came into the room there was no way to turn on any lights. At the Raming Lodge in Chiang Mai, there was about a two inch high sill between the room and the bathroom - to avoid breaking my neck in the middle of the night, when I went to bed I left my fancy flashlight set on low shining across the doorway.
Chiang Mai is home to a considerable number of Buddhist wats (temples). I found my way to Wat Chiang Man, a 13th century temple (Chiang Mai's oldest), which houses the city pillar of Chiang Mai. According to legend, Indra, the Hindu Lord of Heaven, gave the pillar to the people to protect them against evil.
Remember the Emerald Buddha, which I mentioned in describing Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok? In the 15th century it was housed here, until being moved to a temple in Laos, then finally to Bangkok. Today, there's a replica of the Emerald Buddha in this temple.
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| Elephant guardians at Wat Chedi Luang |
Another big thing in Chiang Mai is the night markets, which turn the old city area into giant open air street markets featuring craft vendors, street foods, end live music. Conveniently, my hotel was near one end of the market, and I got the impression that this might have been some kind of re-launch of the Sunday night market because there was a big stage near Tha Phae Gate where a big crowd gathered to hear them make all sorts of pronouncements about the cultural and economic importance of the Sunday market. People stayed to watch entertainment ranging from traditional Thai dance to a
boy band.
The market street itself was packed. I'd like to say I walked through the market, but really the crowd was so thick that the best I could do was to shuffle. The main street of the market was almost a mile long, with many side streets and courtyards to explore as well. Goods included touristy stuff (t-shirts, the ubiquitous
elephant pants), crafts (I coveted the wood carvings, but had no way to carry anything back), day-to-day items like umbrellas, and more. At one point I ducked into the courtyard of Buddhist temple, which was filled with food vendors - I got a dinner of a vegetarian Indian food "set". In another spot, I sat and watched a grunge band. I escaped with my wallet largely intact, making only one purchase: a shirt from
Cotton Failanna which reminded me of the Deva hippie shirts I wore back in high school. There was lots of live music around too, including a funk band in a bar playing Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" and a guitarist on a street corner playing the BeeGee's "How Deep is Your Love?" Gotta love traditional Thai music.
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| Thai dance on the big stage near Tha Phae Gate |
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| The crowd at the big stage |
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| Foot massage vendor doing big business at the night market |
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| Is this my doppelganger? I think he looks more like Will Layman, who filled in for me at the Bob Weir memorial gig |
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| Thai grunge rockers |
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| Vegetarian Indian food for dinner |
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| I saw someone buy and eat a scorpion |
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| Food vendors in a temple court |
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| The temples look very cool lit up at night |
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| Artisan at the night market |
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| Night market crowds |
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| Downtown pavilion |
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Another downtown street at night
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Oh, I can't forget to mention my favorite band, "Music. The Elderly", a term which would be a descriptive name for any of the bands I play in these days. Seriously, it seems to be some sort of community band project for senior citizens, and they actually did play traditional Thai music and instruments. Several Elderly Music groups were performing in various spots at the market.
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Great band name
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Jazzed from the energy of the market, I considered stopping for a
drink on the way home. Pete had given me the following recommendation: "I recommend making friends with some pretty bar girls who want to drink and play pool. Then more charming you are the more frisky things will get, no taboo on lechery down Loy Kroh Road." I had by then figured out that Pete had an erroneous concept of what I had come to Thailand for (I won't detail any of his other recommendations). In truth, one downside with having traveled solo is that I missed out on nightlife in both countries - for the most part, except for music clubs, I just didn't feel like going out to party by myself in the evenings. Anyway, I had an early start the next day, so I went home, made a decaf coffee nightcap in the room, spoke with Valerie, watched a little of SNL, then went
to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a visit to an elephant sanctuary!
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