a night wandering bangkok - by amy

wow, what a great night we had.

Yesterday we flew from pastoral tranquility, high in the himalayas, and today we are in the epitomy of modernism, the Bangkok airport.

We have found an excellent place to retreat to in Bangkok, the phranakorn-nornlen hotel, which is in a neighborhood, Thewet I think, which is just enough north of the main backpackers street (Khao San) to be tranquil and friendly not pushy and just about three blocks away from the river. It's near where Ayuthaya avenue dead ends near the river. This hotel gets Trip advisor's #2 spot for bangkok and it is $60 a night. (we found it in a hurry yesterday when we learned that Bhutan's airline, Druk Air, had switched us from the 4 pm flight to the 8 am flight which meant we could spend a lot more time in bangkok... we emailed the hotel, and had an affirmative confirmation from them within 20 minutes). This hotel is a retreat; driving onto a sidestreet and then down an alley, or 'soi', then a smaller alley, you enter in a lovely little garden and it's very homey and extremely welcoming. they have a little rooftop organic garden... the sheets are perfectly soft and smooth... our 'twin' room had two double beds right next to each other so lots of space and nice windows out to other buildings verandahs, private and cozy.

since we arrived about an hour and half before dusk and the main old bangkok attractions were all closed, our hotel recommended we take a riverboat down to the flower market and come back by taxi. We set out and within a quarter block were already trying the most delicious abundant street food. first we had freshly fried warm little fish cakes with sweet sauce (tod mun) and a tasty clump of deep fried shrimp. then we noticed a little alley with many noodle makers... but first we planned to walk... but then suddenly thunder, lightning and downpours started so we came back to our alley. One vendor in the alley was searing pork ribs on a barbecue made of old oil drums, but he was not ready yet; so we went into the cluster of cafes and first we had a hot pork noodle soup with two pepsis, then we had some fried noodles with vegetables and green onions. delish. slowly my thai phrases from 20 years ago came back, 'how much is that', 'that's delicious'. mostly we got along with point and smile (and show calculators). We did get to discuss the upcoming american elections, once again everyone smiled when we said obama and frowned when they not we said mccain... Meanwhile, rain was pouring down off every roof and many of the street vendors set out their buckets to collect gallons of clean water to use for washing up. When the rain stopped and the eaves stopped dripping, we set out again.

our hotel's alley comes out on a side street with one of the many tiny 7-11 stores and right on a khlong, the canals... turning left we crossed a large intersection and then down a street by the khlong, lined with little shops selling nursery plants. about a block or so on, pedestrian traffic thickened and we entered a row of food shops and then, docks on the river... this was the Chao Phraya ferry stop number 13 or 15, something like that. After a few minutes of watching fast river boats come quickly into the docks and load up, we figured out how to get one of the orange flag lines going south, hopped quickly on to the next ferry, paid our 15 baht each (50 cents), and our ferry swept rapidly downriver. Great voyage. because of the rain the temperatures were perfect and the city was starting to light up. the main temples and complexes along the river (behind the warehouses) are the temple of the emerald bhudda, the grand palace, and so forth and they are all gilded and lit spectacularly. Across the river on the Thonburi side are a few more temples and also a few riverside restaurants. Every few minutes we'd pull up to a dock, zigzagging across the river, and take on and let off commuters. Only a few 'farangs' like us. Finally, we got off at dock 6; we were not sure where we were, the usual wet smelly dockside dark streets, but within a few blocks north and east suddenly we found the flower market, and how great. lots of flowers of every color and the stall owners were expertly fashioning them into the spectacular sculptures made of banana leaves twisted and furled into great shapes and with tiny buds and blossoms attached here and there. there are flower offerings in ropes; in loops; in little castles; in little crowns.

unintentionally, we kept walking, maybe 5 miles, all the way back through old bangkok to our hotel. every time we felt hungry we could get another great street food; little sweet coconut cream khanoms, wrapped in tiny pancakes with bait doey jasmine type flavoring; there were fish, clams, shrimp, noodles, pork. we were too full from our rain retreat stop to eat much but it was so much fun to look at it all. we saw the good, the bad, the ugly but mostly it was terrific. we stuck to streets with less traffic but there were still plenty of small brightly painted tuk tuks and also the bright pink and bright blue cabs. not nearly as many motorcycles as I remembered from bangkok 20 years ago... we walked past all the major temples, which of course were closed since it was long past nightfall. we saw all kinds of vendors and interesting shops. Most streets and boulevards were fairly dark, just local stores open here and there. But finally after an hour or so we found Khao San road which is a riot - filled with neon signs in all colors, hundreds of t shirts, hundreds of stalls, signs in english, lots of young backpacker type tourists and plenty of girls with pretty makeup and very short shorts selling guess what. it's just a few blocks long.. very entertaining. then we turned north on Thanon Ratchasima which is at the west end of the street... and found just what we needed then, an outdoor foot massage venue. really fun... there were about 12 chairs, set up in a row in a sort of vacant lot; we got chairs side by side, reclined on soft pillows with our feet up while our nice masseuses pampered us for a half hour each for 120 baht, or about $3.50, with vigourous massages of our feet, ankles, calves and thighs, using their hands and these little wooden implements and soft towels and plenty of perfumed oil something like camphor. it was really fun. Meanwhile just across the way there was loud pop music playing, thai style. My masseuse was just absolutely beautiful and did a great job...

finally we walked home again stopping for one last bowl of fragrant noodle soup and two more pepsis... what a great bangkok experience before tucking in to our peaceful serene little garden hotel. got up this morning, we are flying to Krabi and Railay beach today... here in the most sophisticated of all airports paying $8 an hour for email... which is probably more than we spent last night on everything, foot massages included... that's modern life for you


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Last memories from Bhutan

This is my first time on the blog since posting 6 days ago. I have read Craig's blogs and they are fabulous. what can I add...

Again one of the nicest things about bhutan was seeing this nation working on blending old and new. I think that for those who live in the main valleys near the road, modernization is going to come quickly... it's clear that there is wealth and well being enough to build a number of solid large bhutanese houses with cars near them... as a result there is a lot of partial construction and building detritus that I noticed as we came back from the more distant parts of bhutan, into Thimpu and Paro. It's also clear there are several economic classes in bhutan... and there were a few really ugly, though very small, shanty towns, probably mostly where the roadworkers from India have to stay during their temporary stays..

the folks with access to education, who probably come from families that for generations have had educated monks and administrators. I read a really great book while we overnighted at Ogyen Choling, the Hero with a Thousand Eyes by Karma Ura, it was about a young man who was supposed to become a lama but was called to be a scribe for the 3rd king, in the 1940s or 50s. It is based on a real person's memoirs. Anyway from this I learned lots about how the older feudal style government marshalled the wealth of goods and distributed them in a way that kept the subjects fairly content but made it clear who was boss... the king and the local governors. The bhutanese have always been led to expect strong leadership and strong demands for voluntary participation and contributions of goods or money, from their kings. So the families that have always been close to the ruling class, are often the ones who own hotels and restaurants and weaving shops. nevertheless when we went into the farmhouse at Ogyen Choling I also realized that the traditional bhutanese farmer worked hard but had a lot of comforts as well... seems a lot like switzerland perhaps... hard work but a clean comfortable farmers type life.

When we were at the temple initiation ceremony at Gangtey Dzhong, I got to wander through the 'fair stalls' surrounding the temple. there were a few shops selling very old kiras (woven silk fabrics) and later on in our trip, I saw women weaving them... obviously each one truly does take months to complete... maybe even a year... and the combinations of the multicolored skirt/dresses called kiras, with the bright outer jackets of brocades, and the inner jackets of bright silky fabrics, were great. the inner collar, and the ends of the sleeves are folded so the inner blouse color acts like a great accent. they love to combine rich hues; turquoise with purple; deep brown with red. then each jacket (toego) is closed with a brooch covered with jewels; and then the women wear heavy colorful thibetan/nepalese style necklaces with lots of turquoise or coral colors... something that picks up the colors in the skirts. The young college educated women pull this off in a very stylish modern flavored way, with just the right dark glasses and hairstyles to pull it into the 21st century.

During festivals, the women must also wear a long slightly stiff 'scarf' about 2 meters long, about a handspan wide, often red or orange.

The men also look very classy. They always seem to be in ghos that are blends of red or orange plaids, sometimes with a dark green part to it; or, a very elegant muted gray color. there is a very elegant white shawl they must put on in temples and there is a way of draping it that totally looks masculine. Our guide Tshewang Dorji who we grew to love dearly was particularly good looking. he wore these soft slipperlike shoes. we will add some photos of him when we return.

About Tshewang Dorji, can't say enough good things - very intelligent, very learned, very eager to teach us thibetan bhuddist dharma, seeming to get a lot of joy out of making us comfortable, very patient with our social blunders (like blowing out incense instead of waving it out)... we got to show him a few new things, like the Tang Valley and Ogyen Choling, and also, on our last day with him, we took a side hike at the tiger's nest up a side canyon to a small temple tended by an older couple and their cat... he said in all his tours he has only gone there 3 times and I think he liked that we wanted to hike up their. Our favorite times with him were on our hikes up to monasteries. He has a great sense of humor. He did seem, over and over, to take us into many many small temples for blessings, and we had such good luck with him. We got to see so much more than we expected. we got special blessings, for example with a small gilded bhudda that flew to the monastery in jakar from the burning lake, that is only on display at most a single day a year. We think that Tshewang was the reason we were so fortunate, to see so many festivals, so much dancing and get so many blessings.