My great Arventure

Bon Voyage to Thailand: Part I

When I was applying for my exchange to Singapore and had my "interview" with the exchange director in Waterloo he asked if I was planning to do any other travelling in the region. In a more eloquent and polite manner I replied "HELL YEAH!!!". So when Kiran offered me the chance to go to Thailand with her and some of her friends studying @ NTU (Nanyang Technological University), which is the other major university in Singapore, I jumped at the exciting opportunity.... even though I would be missing one day of class. Parents stop reading here and go directly to the next paragraph. [I mean c'mon, am I here to study or have fun. Nowhere is the the word 'study' in the definition of Arventure. By the by, I am going to post the actual defintion of Arventure later on]


The twelve of us (10 from NTU + Kiran + I) arrived pretty late in Bangkok on Wed. night. We took Singapore Airlines because they had a decent deal for SIN to BKK. Let me say that those ppl know the definition of service as they more than met their esteemed reputation. After grabbing some taxis, checking into our hostel and arranging who was sleeping where we were pretty tired so we went to bed and decided to get up early for Day 1 of Thailand fun.

We woke up and left the hostel by 8am. Our plan was to see some of the major temples in Bangkok. Now there are two fun ways to travel in Bangkok. One of them is by river boat along the Chao Phraya River. So the tweleve of us hoped on one.


Boy am I glad we did because we got some amazing views along the river.







Our first stop was the area of Ko Ratankosin. Known as the "Vatican City of Thailand" there are quite a few holy places in this area. The first temple we visited was Wat Phra Kaew home of the Emerald Buddha, and the Grand Palace which adjoins Wat Phra Kaew. By the by, Wat means temple in Thai.

(Outside the Grand Palace)


(Portrait of a Brown Man outside the Grand Palace)

Thai architecture is quite amazing. Beautiful colours complimented with careful attention to detail makes for mesmerizing structures.








This is the famed Emerald Buddha. No pictures are allowed inside, but just outside the temple a small window allows tourists to snap a photo without offending anybody. If you click on the photo you should be taken to a blown up size of the photo to see it a bit better.

The Emerald Buddha sits atop a perch at the altar and is quite small in size. On a quick side note, the figure is not made of emerald (as the name suggets) but actually made of Jade. Like I would have known the difference.

The Grand Palace was ok, but not as exciting. The architecture style is a bit more european. The tour consists of some weapons rooms along with some throne rooms (where we can't take photos).

Next up was Wat Pho which is only about a 5-10 min walk from the Grand Palace. Wat Pho is famous for the Reclining Buddha, a large structure (46m in length and 15m in height) of the Buddha in a reclining position before reaching Nirvana, aka enlightenment, covered in gold leaf. To my dissapointment 'reclining' didn't mean Lazy-Boy chair :(.... but the statue was still really cool.

(Portrait of a Brown Man at the Reclining Buddha)


(The Reclining Buddha)

After that we walked around Wat Pho a little more (with our "enlightened" tour guide) and saw some more buddha figures and structures similar to those at Wat Phra Kaew. One cool place was a small temple which was the most important on site (according to the tour guide). It housed a shrine which was actually covered in more gold leaf than the Reclining Buddha. The shrine was pretty impressive to see actually.


Next up, at the suggestion of our tour guide, was a traditional Thai Massage. Don't worry people, this was a legit Thai Massage. Although I did keep one eye open at all times :P It was an hour long and afterwards we all felt so great and relaxed!!! And it was only 250Thai Baht(THB). It is aprox. 30Baht to the Loonie. You do the math!!!

After that we were pretty hungry. So we found a restaurant by the massage place which was along the river and right across from Wat Arun (the next and last temple we visited).

(Everybody at restaurant)


(View of Wat Arun from restaurant)

Now I'll reveal a secret. There was only one real reason I went to Thailand... and it wasn't for the massages. Anybody who knows me knows I LOVE Pad Thai. And when I step into a restaurant in Thailand for the first time you can bet the only thing I'm going to order is Pad Thai!!!!


After finishing lunch we hoped across the river (on a boat) and went to Wat Arun. This Wat is a well known image of Bangkok because of the great view one gets when the sun starts to set behind it. The main part of Wat Arun is the large pilar shown below. You can't climb all the way to to the top, but can get to about mid-level.








After that we were a little templed out, and decided that we had to go see the other stuff Thailand is famous for... Thai boxing!!! Remember how I said there are 2 cool ways to travel in Bangkok. Well the second is via a type of taxi known as a tuk-tuk. Silly me forgot to take a picture of an actual tuk-tuk but you can see some photos of us riding in tuk-tuks. The max they can comfortably carry is 3ppl... 4 with some discomfort. Being poor cheap students we sat 4 in each :P




So we took the tuk-tuks to the boxing arena, but discovered that it was a little too pricey. The cheapest seats were 500THB but those were standing room only WAY at the back. Ringside was 1200THB. So instead some of us headed to a nearby market, Khao San. I wish we had known about this area before because it is a major tourist hang out.




(One of many bars in Khao San... that is right on the street!!!)

It is still a market but in a tourist area, which means that the prices were a little higher. So instead we decided to walk around, check out prices and sharpen our bargaining skills without actually doing any shopping. That way we could get a good sense of what we could bargain down to in other markets (which is what we did the following day).

One thing I've noticed about SE Asia is the large presence of major wester corporations such as Coke, 7-11 (there are soooo many here), KFC.... and of course McDonald's. But hey, at least they try and embrace the local culture.


After that we just went home back to our hostel where we met up with our friends who stayed for the Thai Boxing. They said there was no blood or breaking of bones, but it was still pretty entertaining (ie violent). We walked around the area near our hostel for a little bit and then headed back to sleep to rest for Day 2, which I will write about in the next entry. Cheers!!!

posted by Arvind @ 5:18 AM