Monday
We got to the airport in Bangkok around noon, and were stopped by the immigration “doctor” because, coming from Colombia we were more likely to have yellow fever. The doctor took us to a corner and asked us “do you have yellow fever? No? ok” and put a stamp on a piece of paper…this took about 15 minutes but oh well. On our way out of the airport we found a place that sold city tours for really cheap, the guy told us that since it is low-season for tourism the government sponsors these cheap tours and so we took it for the next day. We took a cab and headed to our hotel; the highway to the airport was impressively well taken care of, there were little statues on the side every 100 yards or so, and they had HUGE advertising sings, imagine 5 normal sized US signs stuck together side by side. Traffic when we got to the city was crazy, it took about a half hour between when we got off the highway and when we got to the hotel.
The hotel was really nice, there was a sign that said that Durian was not allowed in the hotel, it’s a fruit that apparently has a really strong smell and takes about 2 weeks to get rid of if it manages to get in the ventilation system. In the room I noticed there was a bible and a book called the teachings of Buddha, which I thought was really cool. We went out for some food and to walk for a little bit. The area was very active, the first thing we saw where some massage parlors, a LOT of them, we didn’t ask but I’m sure all sorts of services are available…actually I was later told that Thailand is a place where a lot of Europeans come to “have fun” because of how loose their laws about prostitution are. Pretty much every other establishment in the area that we walked that night was either a bar or a massage place, each one of these had about 5 five sitting outside in uniform just sitting there chatting, not even inviting you in or telling you what they have inside, like in a lot of other cities, they were just hired by the place to sit there talk and make the place look pretty. We ended up finding a McDonalds, we all ate there for the equivalent of 8 US dollars. Back to the hotel and sleepy time.
Tuesday
Early in the morning we started our city tour, we began by visiting a few temples. The first one houses the biggest pure gold Buddha statue 5.5 tons of pure gold, crazy. It was interesting to see hoe they managed to combine tourism and devotion, even though there were probably 100 people going in and out every minute while at the same time there were about 5-10 people praying and meditating in front of the statue. Bangkok is a big city in which religion is very big (yes this is the same city that we saw the night before with the massage parlors and the bars) there are 400 temples in the city including one temple next to every public school. After the first one we went to a big temple complex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Pho) that contained a lot mini temples/rooms. The first one we saw had the biggest reclining Buddha, it was ridiculously huge, the walls of the room it was in, were again all completely covered in hand painted drawings of people living with gods among them and that told stories about the characters and how they interacted. There were a lot of people and it was pretty chaotic inside, also we saw some really pretty flower arrangements with loti and other cool flowers. There was a row of hanging pots in which people dropped little pebbles that you bought, supposedly as an offer to the gods for good luck. Maria did it and thought it was so cool.
It was very hot that day and the place was really crowded which made it worse, but we powered through it, we saw some towers that were the tombs of previous kings, and live size Buddha statues that also served as the resting place for members of important families in Thailand, these make up a big part of the more than 1000 statues housed in that complex. We saw the Saturday Buddha next, which is being guarded by 7 snakes that rise from behind him, and Maria Jose sat in front of him imitating his position. The Thursday Buddha, in sitting position and under an umbrella, was in a room in which no one is supposed to be standing, we were politely asked to find a spot and sit down, facing the statue, and not have our feet pointing to the Buddha as a form of respect. I think the last Buddha we saw was the Wednesday Buddha which is standing.
By now you probably figured out that there is a position of the Buddha for every day of the week, which one you worship depends on which day of the week you were born on. While riding in the car between places we booked 2 more events with the same company, that night we would be going to Siam Nirait and the next day to a safari/zoo. Our next stop was the canals we got on a boat and sailed around the canals of the city, you could see various aspects of the city, some houses that faced the river were very neat, modern and expensive looking, but we also saw people living in houses that were about to fall down. In front of temples, people are not allowed to fish, which means that you find incredible amounts of fish just living there, we bought some bread and threw it in the water to see the fish, it was fun.
When we got off the boat we had to almost fight off this lady that wanted to sell my mom some purses, my mom made the mistake of telling her “maybe later” which works great in Colombia because they can’t really ask you to buy any more but they also know that you’re not coming back. In Thailand and the rest of India, we would eventually realize, this causes the person to wait for you, in this case about 1 hour, so they can then tell you “I waited for 1 hour now you have to buy something.
In our next stop we found out why our tour really was so cheap, they took us to a jewelry store/factory and our tour guide asked us to look at stuff for about 15 minutes and then we would move on. My mom ended up buying some earrings, and then we were taken to a clothes shop where you select a fabric have them take your measurements and then they send you your suit/dress/shirt to your hotel the next morning, we looked at some stuff because my dad was kind of interested in a jacket but he ended up playing difficult and making the salesman mad…which he kind of enjoyed. It seemed pretty obvious to us that the tours are financed by those kind of places to take people there, if you see them while walking around, the average tourist would never stop and go inside, but when you’re taken there and have to simply walk inside you’re much more likely to buy something. Then they took us to our hotel where we had a little bit of time to shower, get refreshed and change to go to the show that night.
Our bus came to get us and take us to the show (http://www.siamniramit.com/oldweb/) at our arrival we were greeted with a flower that we could pin onto our shirts, girls were greeting everyone and taking pictures. When we got past the main entrance we saw 2 guys riding elephants and some people selling pickles to feed to the elephants. It was really weird, you get close to them with the pickle and then all of a sudden their giant trunk starts attacking your hand with a slow but steady pace, then the nose opens up and reveals 2 nostrils through which the pickle could have easily fit. When you’ve been worrying about the trunk for a few seconds you realize that there is a huge beast, twice as tall as you are and probably 10 times as heavy coming at you just as fast, that’s when you let go of that stupid pickle and make your escape. Hehe, not really but yeah it’s really freaky, their skin was really tough and they had hairs as think as the bristles of a broom, they were really calm and nice. My dad and I fed them but Maria was too freaked out. Then we went for dinner, which was included in the show ticket cost, it was a thai food buffet that was very organized and well setup in a room that fit probably 200-300 people, it was also very delicious. We thought about how everything was well organized and how it was a really good idea for tourists because they would get exposed to a good chick of thai culture, food, and a very interesting and entertaining show, also the cost was very reasonable but clearly enough to cover the cost, it would probably be a good business idea to try and develop in Colombia. After a while, a magician walked around the tables performing little tricks and announcing the show would start soon; he was followed by a line of drummers, singers and dancers that carried the same message. We went downstairs and saw a little pre-show dance, then walked through a little exhibition that showed the different styled of traditional housing in Thailand. In one of them there was a lady making bowls out or leaves and flowers that looked amazing, and gave my dad and me a little string bracelet that she blessed with a prayer for good luck, then we saw a little shadow puppet show before going inside the theater.
No cameras were allowed inside, you were actually required to put them in a little numbered bag that they would keep outside for you. The theater was huge, but only about a third full that night. The show was awesome, a few “plays” with music lights and dancing and choreography that talked about traditions and history of the region. The first one was bout a king and a queen and hot they met and saw the floating lanterns fly up and away, the same lights that are featured in tangled. The second one was about a clumsy merchant who came in a boat and fell in love with the clumsy lobster saleswoman in town, at the end they kissed. One was underwater and started with a guy diving from the top of the stage to the bottom of the ocean to find a pearl, some others included elephants and one had a magician that called for a participant from the crowd. The second part included religious scenes a forest in which mystical creatures live, a scary depiction of hell where souls were tortured and the king of darkness ruled, and finally a depiction of heaven and the gods living in harmony in the clouds. For lack of a better term I’ll say it was very Disney-ish…in a good way. I really liked it. That was it on that day, we all fell asleep during the ride back to the hotel.
Wednesday
This was, according to Maria, the most fun day of the trip so far. We got up early for a long ride to Safari World, our guide was very happy and enthusiastic and, although she had a very thick accent was able to get her point across. “Look for the pink umbrella” is what we were supposed to do to find her, eventually we found out this was great advice since the park was incredibly crowded. The first thing we saw was the orangutan show, it started with a few orangutans pretending to play some instruments and eventually led up to a boxing match, both the human and non-human animals were hilarious, they kept hitting everyone and making jokes, pulling people’s shorts and pants down, one of the monkeys was a stripper that demanded money every time she showed up. Overall they all really looked like they were having fun, the monkeys didn’t look sad or like they were being forced to do this, and they really looked like they were having fun while playing with their friends, the trainers.
After that we saw the sea-lion show, hilarious, it involved some basketball and a sea-lion performing cpr on a trainer. Then was the “cowboy show”, it looked a lot like the Indiana jones show at the Disney parks, a lot of special effects and explosions and a fight between cowboys and Indians. It was cool and funny but their Thai accents made it funny. Lunch followed and it was really impressive, the package we bought included the entrance ticket and lunch, apparently so did everyone else; in a previously empty room hundreds of us walked in the dining room and a huge buffet was ready and waiting for us. The food was not amazing, but the logistics were incredible, the people were completely unorganized and impatient but there was plenty of food for everyone and in about 2 hours they had fed about 600 crazy people.
Next up was the boat trip, it was a little ride in a boat in which you got to see mechanical animals and natives simulating a boat safari in the jungle in africa, a lot like the jungle trip in the Disney parks too. This one was a lot less…polished, some things were kind of weird, for starters the first native we saw was wearing a piece fabric to cover his private parts except…it didn’t cover them very well…also whoever made the robot/person spent the time to make him a penis, that was really weird. At a few points during the ride some effects were activated; the animals would move or roar and other such things, but pretty much at every one of those you could clearly see the laser that detected your arrival to start the effect, they didn’t try too hard to hide them. Also at one point there was a cage that hung above us within reach, the gaps between bars were about 4 mm. and there was a live snake sleeping in it, maybe I was just being paranoid but it seemed dangerous. I thought the ride was pretty lame but my sister really liked it. Oh, and also on the way out of the park there was a statue of a lady that squirted water out of her nipples. Picture on facebook, hilarious.
Then it was time for the safari, that’s right, an actual real life safari. We got in the car and started driving, it was SO cool, we saw antelopes zebras giraffes, just hanging out outside, we were the ones in the cage. A few zebras and camels decided to walk in front of the cars making the trip a lot slower (and awesomer). There was a “horns” area where there all sorts of animals with different sized and shaped horns, some were really long and thin and perfectly straight, others incredibly twisted and messed up, some pointing up some to the sides, it was really cool to see them all right there in front of you. The latter areas had more dangerous and bigger animals: hippos, bears, rhinos, tigers and lions, all separate. My mom fell asleep when we were entering the lions area (we were all exhausted) and so I scratched the side of the car in order to scare her, it worked beautifully.
On the way back we were again driven to a jewelry store, which by now had started getting a little annoying, while we waited I tried to take a picture of some of the stuff they sell but they told me it wasn’t allowed. Some of the ladies who worked there did Maria’s hair because like everyone else in that continent they thought Maria was so pretty. We got in the car and there were about 4 more groups of people whose hotels were in the same area as ours, unfortunately we got caught in rush hour traffic which means the ride took at least 2 hours, I’m not exaggerating. One of the guys in the van was having a terrible day, at one point he turned to us and said that he had a headache because Maria was being too loud, Maria was a little sad to hear that but she immediately started being really quiet and good. Later on the guy started complaining to the driver about traffic and demanding that he took him to the hotel quickly, the thing escalated to the point where the driver yelled at the guy “just shut up”. The guy was being really rude, I remembered I had some advil so I offered it to him and he calmed down. We eventually got home and then Maria and I got in the pool for an hour or so. Good day.
Thursday
To the airport in the morning, on our way to Singapore. One of the things in our mind was that our next destination was Taiwan since we were very cordially invited by Charles who we met in Bhutan at the meeting. However, since we didn’t have a visa, he insisted on making arrangements and set up an appointment for us in the Taiwanese embassy in Singapore.
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