Bangkok

6 February 2006

Bangkok was a bit of a letdown after all the other amazing places that we'd been.  The city was huge, but there wasn't much for us to do there.  Perhaps we didn't look hard enough or maybe were just too tired to go out and do very much exploring.  We wasted our first day away by chilling out by the hotel pool.  It was so odd to be relaxing by this little oasis surrounded by skyscrapers and surprisingly little noise.  The nightlife was pretty exciting, though.  As we walked to what turned out to be a great little restaurant for dinner, the sidewalks were turning into a huge market with vendors selling everything from shoes and really cool clothes, to bootlegged cd's and dvd's.  We weren't dressed properly to get into the club we wanted to go to (we had sandals on), so we found a karaoke bar instead. 

 

The next day we went sightseeing.  There's a canal that goes all around Bangkok and they have a system of boats and ferries that act like a subway.  It took us a while to figure out how it worked, though.  We went to see the Emerald Buddha, the Grand Palace, and several temples.  These were ornate and  extremely colorful, a definite contrast to the temples of Angkor Wat.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photographs inside the room with the Emerald Buddha.  We only were able to sit there for a few moments in awe of what surrounded us. 

 

Later that evening, we made it to the dance club, but it was so jampacked with people that there was barely enough room to walk around the place, let alone dance.  We squeezed our way up a few flights of stairs to the 4th floor where we were able to watch the action down below.

 

The following day we were exhausted and missed breakfast entirely.  We had a leisurely lunch and then took the skytrain to Jim Thompson's Museum.  He was an American OSS agent (precursor to the CIA) who later settled in Thailand and started the silk business there.  He mysteriously disappeared while on vacation and his house is now a museum.  There are several theories about his demise which include getting eaten by a tiger and even CIA involvement.

 

After that we did some shopping and I got my hair did (it was getting too unruly).  By this point I was having intestinal troubles and wasn't able to enjoy much food at all.  The plane ride home was absolutely no fun .  Total travel time was just over 24 hours and I felt pretty miserable the whole way.  It was a bad way to end the trip, but at least I was able to enoy most of it.  We definitely will return one day and I can't wait for that to happen.  Hopefully some of you guys will be inspired to make this journey also.  Shawn will upload more pics onto the website when he gets caught up with work, school, and other duties....

 

Pics to come...