Sara and I have heard great things about Thailand for years now so we planned a trip. Our trip took us to the Capital city of Bangkok to the religious center of Chang Mai in the North and then to the beach and islands of Phuket in the South.
We started our journey in LA to Korea and then on to Bangkok.
Let me tell you first that Koran Air rocks…such a comfortable, hospitable flight and super clean airport in Soul Korea….more on this later on the return flight 🙂
After about 24 hours of traveling we made it to Bangkok in the early afternoon and although we were tired we knew we had to get going on this new time zone so…..
After a short stop at the train station to get our tickets for Chang Mai (more on this in my second post) we went to our rooming house in Bangkok via a Tuk Tuk.
A Tuk Tuk is a three wheeled motorcycle with a bench seat for passengers behind the driver. This was our first introduction to Bangkok traffic and driving on the opposite side of the road.
Let me tell you we have been in some crazy driving in New York and Italy and Central America but this was amazing how the cars, buses, scooters, tuk tuk’s all weaved in and out of eachother on the road. Traffic rules exist but they are very loose and there are very few traffic lights.
Check out this Tuk Tuk ride…
We arrived at our rooming house in Bangkok down this alley and we were wondering if we may have the wrong place because all of the first floor places were businesses selling things off of docks.
When we arrived at The Royal Tha Tien Villiage  however it was the best looking place on the block.
The owner instantly came out, welcomed us and helped us with our backpacks into the lobby/eating area to let us know what was going on with our room.
The housekeepers were still working on cleaning up our room, so we decided to leave our bags with our host and take a walk around to our bearings on the city we were about to explore.
It is weird that I haven’t mentioned it yet but it was hot and humid, probably 89 degree’s, and where you wanted loose fitting clothes.
We wondered down the street filled with carts selling food, statues, and ran into the Bangkok Flower Market.
Vendors lined both sides of the street selling flowers, moving flowers around on carts…
And creating things like these ceremonial yellow flowers. which you see everywhere in Thailand adorning Bows of boats, shrines to Budda and the King, etc.
We looked for a place to eat on the street but we weren’t too daring yet with our eating. For dinner we found this great place on the end of our block which had WiFi. airConditioning and great food. We ordered some red curry with chicken to share and it was awesome – just enough fire.
By the time we got back our room was cleaned up and we up-packed our things and went to bed because tomorrow was going to be a big day. Â In the morning we checked out our living area and this place is really nice and upgraded for the price – about$25.00 per night.
Tour of The Royal Tha Tien Village…
The first order of the morning was getting breadfast on the street and get into The Grand Palace when it opened and before the crowds arrived.
We found this great, cheap street market with a place to eat just across the street from the entrance to the Palace. The vendor cooks in the morning and has all of the dishes available out to choose from, all you need to do is point…
We sat down on the table with the regulars and had a good hot breakfast for about $2.oo for the both of us. I am wondering which of these delicacies you would have chosen? After breakfast we walked over to the Palace.
The palace has Thai guards as every gate with guns so you don’t want to mess around. You also must wear something to cover your shoulders and legs at all times in the palaces and temples.
We purchased our tickets for about 15 dollars and walked into the most amazing courtyard in Bangkok.
When you walk into the inner courtyard you first marvel at the gold and colors of the buildings.
The area is broken up into The Upper Terrace on the left and to the right is The Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha.
The golden Chedi has within it a repository for Buddhist sacred scriptures.
Its hard to take in how big this structure is until to get up next to it and see all the inlay of gold how brilliant it is in the sunlight.
Giant creature solider statues are all around this inner courtyard, and they are very big and tall.
The Royal Monastery holds the Emerald Buddha which is the most sacred Buddha in Thailand. There is no picture taking inside the Monastery but here is what the building looks like outside.
Its hard to see from far off, but up close these buildings have in-laid tiles that are amazing amount of work. This is from one of the buildings on the upper terrace…
The area was getting very busy so we decided to move on..but a funny story before we did. Sara was stopped by a young Japanese woman who was motioning to us with her camera. We thought she wanted us to take her picture in front of the Monastery..but no she wanted me to take a picture of her and Sara in front of the building…too funny, wish I had taken a picture of her  🙂
The Thai people love their King and walking to our next temple in Bangkok we saw this picture of the king which was all over in different shapes and sizes as we traveled.
The Reclining Buddha is a giant Buddha statue within Wat Pho (Wat means temple).. you can see Sara below standing near the feet of this giant statue.
We walked along both sides of the statue. And on the bottom of the feet you can see pictures with scenes from Buddha’s life. Â This statue literally takes up the whole building.
The temple that houses the Buddha is only one building in this Wat. We walked around the area and found this doorway..
into another courtyard which had more Buddha statues than we have ever seen. Check these out, they line the entire outer rim of the courtyard and many have plaques for individual families..
If you can handle it check out this video of the courtyard Buddha Statues…
It was getting hot so we decided to go down to the river and take a water taxi across to visit Wat Arun. The water taxi’s are running constantly during the day so you simply buy a ticket and jump on the next one; and I do mean jump on because they only stop shortly…
If you have seen any pictures of Bangkok you have probably see a picture of Wat Arun from the river. It is a towering temple that is decorated with small ceramic tiles.
You pay your fee to get in and you can climb to the top. The view from the top of the river and the surrounding area is worth climbing the crazy tall steps to the top.
Check out this video of climbing Wat Arun – I wonder how you would have done…we of course couldn’t do it without laughing..
Video of climbing
For a change of pace from the temples we took a boat down the river to the more modern part of Bangkok. The modern part of the city has grown up over the last 15 years and you can see giant skyscrapers like these traveling down the river….
We took a boat in the early evening to a modern shopping mall, right on the river, called Asiatique.. Â and it was as modern as anything you would see in Orange County
We walked around the modern clothing shops, and had some dinner at a Thai restaurant in an outdoor food court. Â It was really interesting to see such a beautiful Christmas tree here…but made us think of home…
The next day we had a train to catch out of Bangkok in the late afternoon but we wanted to get over to Kao San Road because we had so much about it. Because of the protests of the government going on just a couple of blocks away from this area we were encouraged not to go there but we went anyway.
On the way over to the north west side of town we were educated on what real traffic was in Bangkok. Cars and scooters do not respect the right of way of walkers so you literally have to make a mad dash for it across roads. We made our way to this street which is Kao San Road and it is a real tourist area.
There are lots of rooming houses for backpackers to stay, message places, bars, restaurants and of course places to buy souvenirs. One thing I didn’t expect to see where signs to purchase IDs for all parts of the world..I even saw that you could buy a California Drivers license – too weird…
Now it was time to leave Bangkok and travel to our next leg of the journey. We decided to take a overnight train to Chang Mai because it gave us a place to stay and was very inexpensive.
So we took a taxi to the Train Station in Bangkok, here it what it looks like outside..
We purchased our tickets ahead of time at these counters. An English speaking Thai woman totally helped us out by walking us in and speaking to the ticket counter woman about what we needed..
It is easy to figure out what train is yours in the station, so we packed up our stuff and boarded our train about 6PM on our trip north.
We decided on a 2nd class seat in an air-conditioned car.
The seats are roomy enough to sit in and have room for your bags, so we got settled and started meeting our neighbors for the night.
As we were watching people loading on the train from different stations we say a Thai gentleman boarding the train with this live turtle in water. Were were wondering is this going to be dinner or a pet, so Sara went and investigated. Turns out this is a pet that he had picked up for this daughter.
The bathrooms were definitely not a party, but we were happy to have a bathroom at all..:)
When you are ready to go to bed the conductor in your car breaks down your sitting area into a sleeping area and a top bunk. We chose to put our bags in the top bunk and sleep in the bottom together…not bad…
Well that’s it for today..see you in the morning in Chang Mai…
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