Day 2 - Chiang Mai, Thailand

Today we woke up bright and early at 3am for our flight to Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand.

Chiang Mai is much busier than normal this weekend as many people from other Thai cities and foreigners have come for vacation to celebrate the New Year. And whereas in the U.S. we celebrate New Year's eve for only one night, people here celebrate for 3 nights! That means the city is doing an official New Year's countdown tonight, even though New Years eve is actually tomorrow night (they will do the countdown again tomorrow night).

During the day we visited 4 temples, though we are already starting to get templed-out. There were definitely some cool and unique temples, such as a very old one made of brick (about 700 years old).

Bangkok Notes

Bangkok Notes:
-I like saying hello to people in Thai. It's very easy to remember. It sounds like you're saying, "So what the crap".
-There was a discotheque above our room in the hotel, or at least it sounded like it. Loud bass shook the room, curiously only between 4-11 pm.
-Thais love their king, Rama IX. He's everywhere! In the cab, on street signs, on menus, at the temples, everywhere are posters of the king. We were told multiple times that the king is 84 years old and has ruled Thailand for 65 years. Thais believe their kings are reincarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu (which is a little confusing since Buddhism is the state religion).

Day 1 - One Night In Bangkok

In the evening, we went to the night market on Khao San Road. We travelled there via Tuk-Tuk, a three-wheeled hell cab which is a common form of transportation in Bangkok, and usually gets you there sooner than a normal cab (especially in traffic). Tuk-Tuk drivers are very aggressive - the ride is an action-packed adventure of close calls and near misses. I captured a little bit on video (click on the following link):
Tuk-Tuk video

After dinner and a bit of walking around the market, we decided to grab another Tuk-Tuk back to the hotel (jet lag had definitely set in). We had been warned in the guidebook that some Tuk-Tuk drivers will try and drop you off at shops on the way to your destination because they get kickbacks from their friends who own the shops. This happened to be one of those rides. This driver was persistent, and would continue to ask us in different ways if we wanted to go to some tailor or some seafood restaurant (even though we told him we had just eaten). Since I could not understand the driver's english very well, I apparently accepted the seafood restaurant invitation a few times (I thought he was simply asking if I liked seafood, to which I would respond "yes!"). Kim, who understands broken English very well, would jump in and fix things before I got us into too much trouble.

Day 1 - Bangkok, Thailand (afternoon)

In the afternoon we visited the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. The Palace was once home to the royal family and is still the location of royal celebrations. Wat Phra Kaew was built by Rama I in the late 1700s to house the most treasured Buddha image in all of Thailand - The Emerald Buddha. The emerald Buddha is actually made of jade, not emerald, and is quite small. The Buddha wears different "clothing" depending on the season. Since we were visiting in the cool season (at a brisk 94 degrees) he was wearing his golden robe.

Our last temple stop was Wat Benjamabophit, a royal temple commissioned by Rama V (our favorite Thai restaurant in Atlanta, and also a celebrated king of Thailand known for uniting the provinces of Siam). Here we saw what else - more Buddhas. Buddha statues come in for positions: sitting, standing, walking and reclining, and the positions of the Buddhas hands symbolize different tenets of Buddhism.

At this temple, we also saw monks preparing for a New Year's celebration. Most Thai men are ordained as monks at one point of their life (our guide Maha was a monk for two years).

Day 1 - Bangkok, Thailand (morning)

After 24 hours of grueling travel, we made it to Bangkok at 11:30 last night. Our breakfast this morning included noodles and fried rice... which definitely hit the spot!

This morning we met our guide, Maha, for a Wat-a-polooza tour (a.k.a. a temple tour). We saw four different Wats, about 500 different Buddha statues, and got a crash course in the Thai flavor of Buddhism, which is actually a mix between Buddhism, Hinduism, and animism.

Our first stop was Wat Traimit in Chinatown. This Wat was newly constructed to house a 5 1/2 ton golden Buddha. The Buddha was covered in plaster for transport and only recently rediscovered when the Buddha was accidentally dropped during a relocation effort, cracking the plaster and revealing the gold within (most Buddha images are cast of bronze and then finished in gold leaf, but this one is solid gold).

Our next stop was Wat Pho to see the giant reclining Buddha. This Buddha measures 46 m long, takes up a whole room, and has feet made of mother of pearl. Each Buddha statue looks slightly different based on the period and place from which it originates, but many things are held common based on the 32 ways to recognize the reincarnation of the Buddha in Buddhist scripture - long ear lobes, curly hair and top knot, slender fingers and toes all of the same length, and bow shaped eyebrows to name a few.

Packing night

We are busy packing the night before we leave for our trip. As always, Brian has waited until the last minute. This trip we are going to try blogging without a computer. We are taking  our iPhone, iPad, and an iPad camera connector kit. We also have the Blogger app, which will hopefully make updating the blog easy along the way. This blog entry was even dictated using Siri. We've made it to the 21st century!