A Weekend around Bangkok- Jan 18-20

The next week, my roommates and I decided to do some tourist adventures around Bangkok. We spent one day in the Wat (temple) at the Grand Palace, which is indescribably beautiful. The buildings of the temple are so ornate, with every inch covered in either gold or colorful mirrors reflecting the sunlight. These little statues were a really good example of the detail of the buildings, but they're nothing compared to the entire buildings

One of the main attractions of the Wat is the Emerald Buddha. For all the hype that surrounds it, its quite small. It sits on top of a 10 foot tall or so decorated gold structure, and the Emerald Buddha itself is only about 1.5 feet tall. Its kind of like the Mona Lisa of Thailand (I wonder if that’s disrespectful or not?) However, the story surrounding the little statue is pretty impressive. I don’t remember it completely off the top of my head, but its something along the lines of: It was lost/hidden for a very long time, until lightening cracked open pagoda, and the emerald Buddha was sitting inside. Then, everywhere it went it, random miracles followed. It traveled around a little bit more, and finally made its home in Bangkok. Also, at every change of the seasons, it gets to change its clothes! The three seasons here are rainy, cold, and hot (or hot, hot, and hotter…) so he starts in a full shawl, and then takes a little bit off when it gets hotter. Pretty cute!

Because the King’s sister died right before New Years, her body was being displayed at the Grand Palace for 100 days. Although we weren’t wearing appropriate clothes to go in and see her, we were able to experience all the excitement going on outside. Lots of member of the royal family were going in and out of the Palace all the time, so people are always lined up along the road to try to get a glimpse of anyone important.

-- As a side note, one of the most peculiar things about Thailand is their extreme loyalty to the King and his family. There are pictures of the King everywhere…really, everywhere. Along the main road by the Grand Palace there are huge pictures of him doing selfless deeds, like blessing an old man, planting flowers somewhere important, serving in the army, etc. Or just images of him being scholarly and reading, or playing some musical instrument. All of this demonstrates what an amazing person he is, and that all the Thai citizens should respect him. There will be pictures of him in restaurants, or even up next to images of the Buddha in taxis or ferries. When we went to the movie theater, after the trailers everyone had to stand while the national anthem played and the same images from the street popped up in a collage. Probably one of the biggest culture shocks I’ll have when I return in the summer is to not have a familiar face to look at everywhere I go! I guess I’ll just have to buy my own photo of him to bring home and hang up when I return…

Anyways, one of the other interesting occurrences at the Grand Palace was when a tourist tried to run up and take a photo with some Monks. One of the first things we were told at our orientation was that women are never allowed to touch the robes that the monks wear, and are never allowed to pass any thing directly to the monks – it has to either be set down, or passed through the hands of a male. So, when this lady ran up to the monks for a picture (leaving them standing very awkward) a tour guide began screaming at her, ran over and nearly threw her down on the ground in a bow to the monks. I’d always wondered what would happen if you ever talked to a monk or something, and I was lucky to witness someone else making that mistake so I can try extra hard to avoid it!

Later that weekend, the International Program organized a boat tour of a few temples outside of Bangkok (or inside Bangkok? I don’t know…its hard to figure out city lines from a boat) We went to one temple and saw a Buddha, you know, the usual temple things…then we ate lunch on the water and it was the spiciest meal I’ve had in Bangkok so far. We continued on to an island called Koh Kred, where we were dropped off and told we had 2 hours to make our way up the island to the pier where we’d be picked up. We then continued to get completely lost because there were only really 2 streets on the whole island and we managed to turn down the wrong one. We still had a fun time looking around, and got to see all the places where the islands natives create the pottery that they sell in the market. Unfortunately by the time we made it back to the road we were supposed to be on, we only had enough time to grab a quick snack and hop back on the boat.