SOUTHEAST ASIA 2024—MARCH 13-14, BANGKOK

MARCH 13:  The Sylvan Koh Chang arranged for a tuk-tuk to take us to the 9:30 a.m. ferry to Trat, from where we caught a van to Bangkok, a trip of about six hours.  The tuk-tuk ride on the mountain roads was, as always, a little hair-raising, but we got to the ferry on time, so that’s something.  

Arriving in Trat, we caught a van to Bangkok.  (I would definitely fly from Trat to Bangkok next time.  The scenery didn’t justify the length of the drive.) 

The van deposited us at the Victory Monument bus depot in central Bangkok early in the afternoon.  We grabbed a tuk-tuk to our riverfront hotel, the Sala Arun, which we’d booked for two nights through Booking.com.  We had a return flight to Berlin on the 15^th, and we knew instantly from the view from our hotel room (below) that two days in Bangkok were just not going to cut it. 

We spent the next couple of hours in our room on the Qatar website, trying to minimize the outrageous cost of rebooking our return flight.  In the end, we decided you go around only once, sucked it up, and extended our trip by 11 days.  That was longer than we’d had in mind, but it was the only fare and connection that worked, and we knew we’d sort out the logistics of almost two additional weeks in Thailand later.   Fortunately, the World’s Best Cat Sitter in Berlin was only too pleased to stay longer in our apartment and, relaxed, we set out to do what we had come to Bangkok to do:  sight see!

Our hotel had a rooftop bar with a superb view of Wat Arun temple (below) directly across the Chao Phrya River that courses through Bangkok.  With the extra time we now had, we could visit that monument at our leisure.  Now it was time to find the coolest cocktail bar in Bangkok.  The possibilities were endless. 

We settled on the Attitude Fusion, and if we thought the view from our hotel was spectacular, nothing could quite compare with the view from this bar’s rooftop.  We had it all to ourselves and took in the high rises, pulsating lights, and rather incongruous statue of Christ the Redeemer.  Suddenly Rio? 

MARCH 14:  We spent the morning on the Internet, looking for an accommodation for our Bangkok extension.  We settled on Siamotif, a small boutique hotel in the Thonburi District, just a few bends (but a world) away on the Chao Phrya River.  We booked for five nights and were now free to wander.

We began our tour of Bangkok at Wat Pho, one of the most important Buddhist temples in Thailand, located next to the Imperial Palace, across the street from the Sala Arun hotel.  Wat Pho is the temple complex we saw from our room and convinced us to extend our trip.  

Lonely Planet has an excellent description of the temple complex.  It was built in 1688 as a monastery and expanded in the 19^th c. by King Rama III as the country’s first center of public education.  It has the largest reclining Buddha in Bangkok at 46 meters long and 15 meters high; the largest collection of images of Buddha in Thailand; and two massage schools where you can book a massage on site.  The stupa and perimeter walls of the temple buildings are encrusted with pottery shards and glass mosaics, some of which are mirrored or backed in gold leaf.  The effect when the sun hits the glass is sparklier than a Taylor Swift concert costume!  Here are some images of the complex. 

 

The ginormous Reclining Buddha for which Wat Pho is famous is modeled out of plaster around a brick core; it is entirely covered in gold leaf.  The soles of the Buddha’s feet are inlaid with mother of pearl and illustrate the 108 characteristics of the Buddha. 

 

 

As can be seen in some of the foregoing images, every square inch of the interior of the temple is hand painted in the classic "Nature abhors a vacuum" style.  The level of skill is amazing and the color combinations are quite lovely.

The massage school we visited on site had a museum display explaining the principles of Thai medicine, complete with a model illustrating the chakras or energy pathways of the body that will be familiar to those who have had acupuncture.

 

After lunch, we took a ferry across the river to Arun Wat, the stunning temple we had seen from our hotel rooftop bar.  Lonely Planet has fantastic photos of Wat Arun at all hours of the day, as well as a concise description of the temple complex, whose central feature is the 82-meter high prahng (tower) constructed between 1809 and 1824 by King Rama II:

Wat Arun is the missile-shaped temple that rises from the Chao Phraya River's banks. Known as Temple of Dawn, it was named after the Indian god of dawn, Arun. It was here that, after the destruction of Ayuthaya, King Taksin stumbled upon a small local shrine and interpreted the discovery as an auspicious sign that this should be the site of the new capital of Siam.

Today the temple is one of Bangkok's most iconic structures – not to mention one of the few Buddhist temples you are encouraged to climb on.

Steep stairs lead to the top, from where there are amazing views of the Chao Phraya River. …From the river it is not apparent that this corn-cob-shaped steeple is adorned with colorful floral murals made of glazed porcelain, a common temple ornamentation in the early Ratanakosin period, when Chinese ships … calling at the port of Bangkok discarded tons of old porcelain as ballast.

At the temple entrance, which is guarded by a pair of fierce warriors, we encountered a young Thai woman in traditional dress posing for photos.

 

Men in traditional Thai dress (except for the sports shoes) were also deep into Instagram moments.

Auxiliary buildings at Wat Arun like the one above are plastered; embedded in the whitewashed exteriors are porcelain tiles in floral designs. 

Reminding us that we were visiting a Buddhist temple, pairs of monks in saffron robes shaded themselves from the oppressive heat with umbrellas. 

Giving in to the intense midday sun, we took the ferry back across the river and moved on to lunch at a hole in the wall, from which we plotted our afternoon.  We contacted the tuk-tuk driver who had brought us to our Sala Arun hotel and arranged a trip to Wat Saket to see the golden Buddha and then to a small temple called Devaraj Kunchon.    

The name Wat Saket has an interesting origin.  From Wiki:

When Bangkok became the capital, King Rama I (1737–1809) renovated the temple and gave it its present name (which roughly translates as "wash hair"); it was believed that on his return from the war, the king stopped to take a bath and wash his hair here, before entering the inner city.

The temple's construction was star-crossed:

Rama I's grandson, King Rama III (1788–1851), decided to build a chedi of huge dimensions inside Wat Saket, but the chedi collapsed during construction because the soft soil of Bangkok could not support the weight. Over the next few decades, the abandoned mud-and-brick structure acquired the shape of a natural hill and was overgrown with weeds. The locals called it the phu khao ('mountain'), as if it was a natural feature.

The artificial hill was used as a military look-out point until King Rama IV decided to give it another go and began construction of a small temple on the site of the collapsed structure.  Rama V completed the temple in the early 20^th c. in Carrara marble and covered it in a layer of gold.  Concrete walls were added in the 1940s to stop erosion, preserving the hilltop temple as a popular Bangkok tourist attraction and symbol of the city.

Wat Saket hosts a macabre fall festival I’d like to see.  From Wiki.

[In November] a great Loi Krathong festival takes place at the temple, along with freak shows such as Phi Krasue ("floating female ghost head with glowing viscera dangling below"), Dek Song Hua ("two-headed child”), Mia Ngu ("snake's wife”), or fun games Sao Noi Tok Nam ("little girl falling into water”) etc. This festival is well known to Bangkok residents.

Here is a comparatively tame image of the interior of the main temple.

In an adjacent space, there is a 9-meter-tall Buddha, which like the temple itself, is covered in gold.

From Wat Saket, our tuk-tuk driver took us to a small temple called Devaraj Kunchon.  Unfortunately, we arrived after 5:00 pm and the caretaker had already closed up for the day.  As we approached, we saw that she was washing the exterior stairs and surrounding verandas.  (It is expected that visitors remove their shoes before entering the inner sanctums, and the floors are invariably pristine.) 

The walls of the small building were encrusted with mirrored glass mosaic tiles, similar to what we'd seen at Wat Pho and Wat Arun.

 

It’s a pity we couldn’t enter the temple, because this image I pulled from the Internet shows a spectacular interior with a golden Buddha seated in the lotus position in a room with cloud motif wall covering. 

Exhausted but happy, our tuk-tuk driver dropped us off at our Sala Arun hotel and we arranged for a pick up the following morning to take us to our new accommodation, Siamotif. On our way to dinner later that evening, we had one last, glorious view of Wat Pho by night.

 Keep it real and keep your head!

Marilyn