back home

well, i'm safe at home. i arrived yesterday afternoon, after a 14 hour train ride, and 25 hours of flying/waiting in the airports.

but, this will be about bangkok. i stayed in bangkok for a day before boarding the flight at 1AM. honestly, most everyone i talked to said bangkok was polluted and claustrophobic. i found it totally opposite.
it was beautiful.
i stayed in a ridiculously nice guest house again.



super modern place.




i had some potatoes, onions and green peppers for breakfast and headed out.

actually first, i headed out in a dress shirt, because i planned on visiting some temples, and i knew that they had some rules about what you can and can't wear. so i figured i'd play it safe. but after about five minutes of walking around in the heat of the city, i was drenched in sweat.
so i went back and changed to a t-shirt.




i took a boat taxi out to the center of the city, and tried to figure out where i was going.



i walked around for a while, without much success of figuring out where i was. so i flagged a taxi and he drove me to the area with the temples.






i found my way into Wat Pho, or more famously, the temple with the Reclining Buddha.
the place is huge, with tons of smaller buddha statues and shrines all over.







the amount of detail in everything, the shrines, the doors, the windows, is incredible. absolutely unreal. so you can imagine how much time and effort must have been put into something as huge as this:


then i went into the main temple, with the legendary statue.



it's massive.







the enormous feet have really intricate designs carved into them.

along the side wall, there are a whole ton of little metal pots. you are supposed to change in a twenty baht note for quarter baht coins, and drop a coin into every one of the metal pots, to bring good luck. so the whole place echoes of thousands of little clinking sounds all the time.



after that, i took a boat again, across the river from Wat Arun, another famous temple.




i love the juxtaposition bangkok offers of the modern with the traditional.




i liked the look of this old building. i think it may have had a fire in the upper floors, and never got repaired.


rush hour on sunday?


i found my way to the famous Lumphini park. it's a huge, gorgeous place, with a big lake in the middle.




these giant lizards hang out around the edges of the park.

at the end of the day, i had to find my way to Lumphini boxing stadium for the obligatory muay thai picture. (even though it was closed)


i finally went back to the guesthouse for some dinner, which was incredible.

fried potato cakes, fresh tofu and salad with a sweet and sour dressing.


then i had a julienned veggie sandwich with some french fries. (i was STARVING after exploring all day.)

i had a guest for dinner:


so after an overnight train ride, and a snowy landing in beijing...


i'm home!
i hope everyone enjoyed the blog as much as i enjoyed the trip.
thanks for all the emails and comments.
see you next time i decide i need a break from the US!
-daniel

a parade, a fire show, a festival, and leo

my friend sebastien and i went wandering off to find a vegetarian restaurant in the western temple the other day. a temple is called a "wat" in thai. the name of the big one, west of the city, is Wat Suan Dok.


it's quite an impressive place, with an even more impressive view of the mountain behind it.
unfortunately, by the time we found the restaurant, it was closed.

so we found somewhere else to eat, and then started home.
and we stumbled upon a parade. which may sound strange, but parades are pretty common here, so stumbling upon them happens more often than you might think.



the procession came from two different directions on one road, (with traffic still attempting to get through) and converged in one temple/worship area. we couldn't figure out what it was for really, but it had something to do with a special day of the moon's phases.
it's really kind of wild to see people get so excited about something like this. i feel like there is a lot more unity than in the US. we have parades for thanksgiving, the fourth of july, labor day, etc...
but they're really more of an excuse for us to get together with family, set off fireworks and be merry. which is wonderful in it's own respect, but i noticed that, at least here in thailand, people are genuinely excited about the religion and life in general.
the states offer a great freedom of religion, customs, and belief, so i'm not suggesting that unity is better in that sense. it's just really awesome to see people so empowered and organized about something.

anyway, the parade was crazy. here's a bunch of photos and, if i can upload them, videos:




young novice monks.




women doing a traditional holy dance. if you look closely, you can see the metal claw-like covers they wear on their hands, specifically for the dance.




TONS of flowers were brought in, in everything from buckets to huge, elegant arrangements.


and this guy.
i don't know what he is, but he kind of looks like a thai santa with a zebra outfit.


here's some more women dancing in the parade.


and this horse was seriously loving the beat, i guess.

after that, sebastien headed home, and i found my way to the yellow bird cafe again, where there was a birthday celebration, complete with a poi show, or fire spinning.






thats my friend jessie, with the ball. she does this act where she dances around the ball, and it seems like it's stationary the whole time. it's wild.
(amazingly, i took this photo right as someone else's flash went off hahah)


then i went and hung out with Duy for a little while, the owner of the Blues Pub.
been there 25 years, and he refuses to play anything other than old blues music.
also, he won't sell anything other than thai beer and thai whiskey.
which severely limits his menu to two types of whiskey and 4 types of beer.
keep that in mind, and the fact that he's been open for 25 years speaks volumes about the atmosphere and his relationship with the customers.




then i took a song taew home, which is basically a pickup truck with a roof and some seats. there's two different types. the yellow ones go on a specific route, and cost about 30 cents to ride, wherever you get on or off. the red ones will take you wherever you wanna go, for the right price. you have to bargain with them, but it's usually no more than 5 dollars for a ride home from the city.


THEN, last night i met with some friends, and we decided to go to this festival by the lake we had seen flyers for. we took off on my friend nat's motorbike, following our two friends who said they knew where they were going, but in fact, did not. so we ended up driving around in some place, where i could only see bamboo and stray dogs, for about an hour. running into the occasional person to ask where the lake was, and turning off the bikes every now and again, to try and hear the music and guess which direction it was coming from.
eventually we found the place.


the first band was a sort of reggae-ska band, with one guy on a thai version of the marimba, and another guy who switched back and forth between serious saxophone skills and phenomenal flute solos.




the second band was a blues band, and a really talented one at that.
the lead singer was hilarious. he had this hair that could easily be passed off as a dollar store halloween costume wig.
but he played SO HARD, and the entire time he played, he never once stopped smiling.
i talked to him for a second after his set, and he told me that he loved the blues ever since he was a kid. a lot of thai people really have a thing for reggae and blues music.


the third band was a tiny thai woman who played flamenco guitar, and sang beatiful spanish. i was thoroughly amazed, especially with the flawless rendition of "La Bamba"

lastly, i'll give you some photos of the place i eat at almost everyday, just behind the guesthouse.




this is noi. he and his wife and their daughter run the restaurant right on their front porch.


this is noi, may, and their daughter bang. noi is holding up the one and only:


LEO. leo, the asthmatic, spastic little pug, who will truly dedicate himself as your companion in exchange for a few seconds of petting. he pretty much only leaves my side to go hump the neighbor's chihuahua.


these two are my other friends, who hang out in the street behind the guesthouse. they follow me home, and then inevitably end up brawling in the dirt over who's getting petted more. their interests include chasing the chickens and making motorbikes slam on the brakes.


i think i might head out to a place i just heard of by the north gate which has live jazz bands.
i'm headed to bangkok by train on the 6th, and then flying home on the 8th.
see ya'll in just a couple of days!