Where are Alan and Karla?

Wow…to go from sunsets on quiet beaches to beer clankin’rowdy streets was a shocker. We are finally in Bangkok. We studied the Bangkok map and decided to stay near Koh San road so it would be easier to get to all of the attractions we wanted to see. Koh San road was so busy and loud, full of tourist, people selling you things and lots of cloths! We got into Bangkok in the morning and found a guesthouse by early afternoon. It was surprisingly clean and right off of Koh San Road. We walked around a bit and decided to head to a popluar market on the south east side of Bangkok (we were on the west side). We took our first Tuk Tuk ride on our way to the market. We enjoying checking out the streets and the cars, and most of all how many people that could fit on a scooter at one time. You always saw 2 or 3 people on these tiny scooters, sometimes more with kids, especially on quieter streets.

We were excited to check out the big market, since we missed the weekend market (getting here too late on Sunday), once we arrive at the ‘market’ and realize we asked to go to the mall. So we decided to check it out, see if there are any inexpeisive shops. The mall was so busy with all of the after Christmas sales, similar in that way to the US, but the shops themselves were about 1/8 the size of the shops in US malls. And they fit so much in the stores. We looked around for about an hour and realized this is not what we were looking for, so we asked a women where the nearest market was, she gave the directions, then we noticed it was close to the Lumpini Park we wanted to go check out.

We headed over to the park, probably walked a few miles, understanding how big Bangkok really is…. We get to this park, it is one of the larger parks in Bangkok from the map, we had also read that at this park there is the big aerobic class. We walk into the park and see so many things going on. It reminded me of Wash Park in Denver, lots of people running, picnicing…making me really miss Denver and our volleyball days. There are so many difference activities going on, people rollarblading, music playing and kids playing. We keep walking through the park and find the aerobics class, it was huge!!! So many people, I joined in for a while Alan took pictures (that is me in the red pants). We then found people playing basketball and this kind of hacky-sack game called Sepak Takraw. Sepak means ‘kick’ in Malay and Takraw means ’ball’ in Thai. They play it everwhere. It is fun to watch too, the men are really impressive on how they can kick the ball.

After checking out the park, we headed over the music in the park. It was an orchestra with two singers, they were singing lots of songs in Thai and also a few others songs like Mama Mia and Hero from Miss Mariah. I think the park was exactly what I was looking for, I felt like we got experience what urban living is like in Bangkok, there were some Westerners but not that many, many people just off work, getting their workout and taking their families to listen to music in the park. This experience was probably my most favorite of the trip, thus far…

After the park we headed to another market that a women from the mall told us about. It was a night market in the middle of the redlight district…we mainly window shopped which helped us get an idea of prices for shopping in the future. We were there for about 2 hours which felt like forever, I was over the night market scene since every other step you had someone in your face asking you to buy something or showing you a flier about a ‘peep’ show. I would just tell the guys talking about the peep show to talk to Alan…Alan really appreciated it. We opted out of going to one of the peep shows and headed back to Koh San Road for dinner and bed. Koh San road was just as bad with people trying to sell you stuff minus the peep shows. We grabbed food from one of the food stands, I had fried noodles and Alan had a falafel with lamb, he was so excited for something different to eat. We headed to bed luckily we really couldn’t hear much of the noise on Koh San, except for a bar near by that had a really good acoustic guitar singer. I feel asleep listening to the song Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, which is nice since made me think of Kristie, it was one of the songs we played at her funeral service.

The next day we tried to go to the Grand Palace and some temples but we started out too late and they were closed for the day. We ended up walking around and checking out Chinatown and a local market where the store and restaurant owner buy their food and supplies. Alan took some more pictures, below is a picture of some women preparing Garlic to sell for the next day.

That night we went to a Thai boxing match at the big stadium. It was an amazing scene. There were so many people 99% men at the sadium. I only saw about 10 women the entire time, just not a place women go to I guess, unless your son or boyfriend is fighting. There were so many rituals with the fighting, showing respect to the fighting rink, each other, etc. I was so amazed. Then there was the side betting in the stands. People were going crazying, yelling in Thai, holding their hand out for betting, usually with four fingers, sometimes one. We think it meant the person will go down in the 4th round or in the 4th minute of the round. Overall lots of noise and people pointing at the rink and making hand gestures, like he should of done this or put his hands there and kneed him here.

The next day we headed to check out the Grand Palace. We were stopped by a Tuk Tuk driver offering to take us there for really cheap. They said that the Grand Palace doesn’t open until 140pm because of a Monk ceremony, and we should go see something else first. I wanted to see the Golden Buddah, so we talked to him about going there first then the Grand Palace. The Tuk Tuk driver started to tell us we need to go to Golden Buddah and another temple before the Grand Palace. Then we got uncomfortable and got out and started to walk to another area where there were more Tuk Tuks. We then went to the Golden Buddah, I bought a little bird cage with birds where you are suppose to free them in front of the Buddah giving freedom and hope. Alan bought a flower and incense as his offering to the Buddah. After we were done with our offering we stood for a while and saw the worker go and pick up the flowers off of the buddah and throw them out and the guy that we bought the flowers went and pick them up out of the trash and put them back in his bucket to sell. We are tourist suckers!!! After the Golden Buddah, we heading to the Grand Palace. We found out it had been open the entire time, and these Tuk Tuk drivers tell you that it is closed (even put their umbrellas in front of the hours of operations sign in the front of the palace), so they can take you to other temples and along the way to a tailors shop and hope that you buy something. We were tourist suckers again!!! But besides that, the Golden Palace was amazing. I was impressed with the detail and craftmanship, it was so magnficant to see and the detail of the buildings and temples is something I will never forget.

That night we booked a train to head up to Chiang Mai. Except for not seeing the floating market, we felt we had seen enough of Bangkok and wanted to head up to Chiang Mai to complete our tour of Thailand. We booked an overnight train with a sleeper car, it was a 14 hour train ride…yikes! But neither one of us had ever been in sleeper car, so we were excited to see what it was all about.