We have arrived!

We have arrived and it’s great to be here. The Asiana Airlines flight to Bangkok was downright pleasant which was very nice as travel time totaled over 23 hours. The leg from LAX to Inchon, Seoul took 12 hours and the leg from Seoul to Bangkok another 6. This left plenty of time for sleeping, eating, and watching movies. We were supposed to get another hour on a United Express feeder flight from San Diego to Los Angeles but the fog was so thick on departure, they put us all on a bus and drove us up to LAX. My parents left about the same time as us from San Diego and arrived about the same time in Bangkok but on a Northwest flight via Tokyo. We hooked up at the airport early in the morning on January third and shared a cab into town.
We awoke our first morning to a Bangkok that at first blush appears big, crowded, dirty, and beautiful! Interestingly, two friends and colleagues of mine are in town as well. The three of us all were all hired at the same time and knew each other well both on and off campus. Mark is married to a Thai woman, Boon, and is staying in her family’s house with their four-month old child Benjamin. Also in the house are Boon’s mother and grandmother both of whom refer to the baby only as Heng-Heng (Lucky-Lucky). Mark had previously arranged hotel reservations for ourselves and Gwenyth very near Boon’s family house which is very centrally-located in the city. He kindly met us on our first morning and helped us get our bearings showing us first a small morning street market and a Chinese temple area near Boon’s family house. Properly oriented, he led us toward the nearby Chao Phraya River. The traffic is notoriously gridlocked in Bangkok (but, for some reason, always seems to be whizzing by fast and furious whenever we want to walk across a street) so we decided to travel by river shuttle as headed out to soak up the city.
We were packed onto a crowded boat, taking care to keep clear of the area explicitly set-aside for monks who always travel for free. Most men in Thailand enter the monastery for at least part of their lives. The monks are supported by the general population at large who gain merit for themselves by offering food to the monks who circulate with their offering bowls daily. We travelled upriver to the Ko Ratanakosin royal district. The complex encompasses many buildings and stupas (conical towers) all of the spectacularly decorated both inside and out. One of my favorites was Wat (temple) Pho which houses the largest reclining Buddha in the world. The Buddha is over 150’ long and seems almost too big for the ornate structure in which he is housed. The Buddha is completely covered in gold leaf and his feet are inlaid with complex mother of pearl scriptures. The angle of repose reflects the Buddha’s posture as he left this world and entered Nirvana which I suppose is why it looks like he is just kicking back rather than fighting the end in death throes. I offered coins to the 100 bowls alongside one wall of the temple asking for good fortune on our travels in return.
Already in need of a break we all piled into the back of a little tuk-tuk; an anamotopeic three-wheeled motorized rickshaw to the oldest part of town a little further upriver for lunch. Getting out, we soon found ourselves in a rabbit-warren of narrow aisles serving small shops and restaurants. The smoke from many small kitchens drifted through shafts of sunlight slanting around awnings and metal roofs. Bumping elbows with orange-robed monks shopping for religious amulets and ray-bans, we savored the spicy smell of the food being prepared. Everything was open air and most restaurants were narrow with only two rows of small tables along a central aisle. We picked on only because of the availability of a table on the water and were rewarded with great food and serendipitous entertainment. We had noticed the large number of carp-like fish between the mats of floating hyacinths in the cocoa-brown water in the river next to our table. It turns out they were waiting there for lunch as well. Soon, two men began throwing what looked like small pieces of fruit and what were possibly fish pellets into the water from a small covered platform situated over the water at right angle to the table at which we sat. Soon the water was boiling with literally tons of open, whiskered mouths gulping at the food. For my part, I was enjoying what we were served and tried to show slightly better table manners. After both we and the carp were sated, we walked back to the royal district to visit the nearby Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew while the carp swam off to Buddha-knows where. Wat Phra Kaew is the most revered Buddhist shrine in Thailand and is ornamented commensurately. The entire exterior of the main building is covered in gold and blue and mirrored mosaic tile. Many other structures are similarly covered in mosaics others entirely in gold while others in mosaics of colored glass. The overall effect is quite spectacular. The Catholics may have the corner on the stained-glass market but the Buddhists really do up the color.
Properly touristed out, we headed back to the hotel where the oldest and the youngest of the party crashed out while Zachary and I hosted Mark Goodman, his Thai family, and Gwenyth for dinner. They chose a local restaurant featuring karaoke. The place was only about one-third full but there was no lack of people lining up to take their turn at the mic. Everyone would clap as someone started singing, possibly for their astute musical selection as talent seemed not to be a material issue. The meal was overall very enjoyable but one is always struck by the differences from home, hence the interest of travel I suppose. For example, from my vantage near the window, I was noticing how the massive amount of dirty dishes for the corner restaurant across the small side street were done by hand by one woman squatting over tubs of soapy water on the sidewalk. Similarly, while there was a small kitchen in the back of the restaurant, much of the cooking was done at a large metal stove on the street at the other side of the establishment.