Bangkok – 21st March

Arun Wat

The ship docked at Laem Chabang, a container port about 25 miles from Bangkok.  We took a coach into the city – not a hair-raising ride like the last one to Saigon, but because of heavy traffic it did take 2 hours.

Bangkok became the capital of Thailand (then Siam) in 1782 when King Rama 1 moved his court from the western to the eastern side of the Chao Phraya River and he built the Grand Palace and the temple Wat Pho beside the river.  The city expanded rapidly in the early 20^th century, and, following an occupation by the Japanese in WW2 it grew to a population of 8 million (there are 62 million in Thailand).

We had 4 hours to explore but this hardly allowed us to scratch the surface of this fascinating city.  We were dropped at a hotel in the town centre which is conveniently connected to a monorail station  so we took the train to the river bank from where we could catch a passenger boat up the Chao Phraya river to the area around the Grand Palace which is home to many beautiful temples and other old buildings.  The river is a main thoroughfare through this area and several of the top hotels are situated on the waterfront and have their own river boats.  Opposite the Grand Palace is the beautiful Arun Wat temple (Temple of the Dawn - see photo) which has a 259 ft. pagoda that can be climbed precariously from the outside.  We didn’t cross the river to visit it but have it on the list for next time. 

We headed instead for Wat Pho which is the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok and contains the country’s largest (150ft long and 49ft high) reclining Buddha.  That was impressive, but the rest of the temple is really beautiful,  – it is also renowned for teaching herbal medicine and traditional massage and it is possible to have a massage there.

Wat Pho

The Reclining Buddha

Unfortunately we couldn’t enter the Grand Palace (which is surrounded by a high wall) because Keith was wearing shorts  - we opted instead to engage a tuk-tuk (3 wheel auto rickshaw) to take us to two other temples recommended by one of the officials – he also negotiated the price of 40 baht (about 80 pence) for her to drive us around and wait whilst we visited each one.  Neither of them came close to Wat Pho in looks but they looked more like working temples so were interesting to see. The driver was very keen for us to also visit an official export shop which  had a sale of jewellery – we didn’t want to but she said that if we  just went in she would a get a free petrol coupon which obviously meant a lot to her!  The jewellery was all very fine stones and gold or platinum, not quite in our budget, so we didn’t stay long.  After a drive through a very interesting-looking market we got dropped off at the canal from where we could take a boat straight back to our meeting point.  We had read that the canal was built to provide an alternative means of transport and ease traffic congestion but that you had to be brave to use it because of the smell!  Actually it didn’t smell much and was preferable to the traffic fumes – also at 20 pence each it was a real bargain. 

Canal Transport

We finished the day with some lovely cold Thai beers  and are now full of plans to come back and do some serious exploring.

On another subject, back on the ship, having eaten a delicious Thai meal from the buffet, we have just seen a second performance by a mind reader called Marc Paul – he is amazing and we can’t work out how he does his act (unless he really does read minds of course).  Would be interested to hear from anyone who has seen him.