Sky Train and Subway

Probably the fastest way to get around Bangkok is the Sky Train.  Two elevated lines run on concrete overpasses, intersecting at Siam Square. The Surasak station wasn't too far of a walk from my hostel, so I took it a few times.  Trains whizzing along the two layers of tracks, with the upscale shopping center below, seem to be in the city of the future.

There is also a subway system in Bangkok, also with two lines.  However, it didn't run anywhere near my hostel, so it wasn't of much use to me.

I did take the subway for a couple of stops, after taking the sky train to it, when I went looking for China Town.  I mostly just wanted to see what it was like and add it to my mental list of subway systems.  I love subways, and it may seem cheesy, but I enjoy checking things off my mental bucket lists: countries visited, subway systems, Hard Rocks, etc. 

I didn't take the subway again, though. And the bonus of the sky train is really speed, not price.  By the time I took both the sky train and the subway, it was cheaper to take a taxi back.  It's just that there are no traffic jams when you're above or below everything. 

Colorful Thailand

One thing that makes Thailand fun is that they are not afraid of color.  Take the taxi cabs in Bangkok, for example. 

Some are a fairly normal yellow and green.  But many are in bright, almost neon shades-blue, green, orange, purple, and the most common of all-hot pink. 

Sunday with the Family 2

Although the church has such a good system of translation set up, we didn't need it for the sermon.  There was a visiting preacher that day-a man who works with the South Pacific Bible College in New Zealand, David Nelson.  The regular preacher, Glome, translated into Thai.  His English is very good.  The Somprasong church is making use of technology, so you can even see a video of the service here.

http://m.ustream.tv/recorded/37372967?rmalang=en_SG

In fact, there were people from all over there. I met a family who are refugees from Pakistan, an American who's lived in Thailand for twenty years, people from Nigeria,Kenya, and Malawi, and a nice preacher and his wife from the Philippines.  And of course, several friendly Thai people. 

After the service, there was a short ceremony to give roses to all the mothers, since mother's day was the next day here (always held on the Queen's birthday). Then, Bible class; there are enough foreigners that they have one class in English. 

Finally, we went out onto the covered patio for lunch.  They may Sunday dinner together every week, and nearly everyone stays.  Usually after that they have various things going on in the afternoon which some stay for, too, but those were cancelled that day because the teachers were among those gone to the retreat. 

I spent lunch-which was a typical Thai meal of rice, with a spicy vegetable soup to pour over it, along with marinated boiled eggs-getting to know a Wichitra.  We got along quite well as we had several things in common to talk about; she is a retired English professor.  She taught for many years at one of the universities in Bangkok.  Now she teaches a Bible class for the children at church, and does the church's facebook page, and generally keeps up with everyone. That's her with me in the picture below. 

It was so nice to be part of such a big gathering.  It's the largest I've seen in over a year.  It was nice, too, to be with a mature congregation, with elders and all.  Trust me, I didn't appreciate what a blessing good elders can be until I no longer had them.  This congregation was even getting their teams ready for Bible Bowl!

Sunday with the Family

One thing that is often difficult or impossible to find while travelling is a church to meet with on Sunday. Since so many people have been gone from Wuhan over the summer, there wasn't even anyone to meet with these on the Sundays I was home. 

However, I was talking to a friend who traveled extensively in southeast Asia, and he gave me directions and information about the Somprasong congregation in Bangkok. 

I knew the service began at nine, and I didn't know how long the taxi would take, so I left the hostel about ten till eight.  You know I was excited if I got moving that early! I shouldn't have worried, though.  I was there by eight fifteen, and had to wait around a while for others to show up.

The Somprasong congregation has about 150 members, although some were gone to a family retreat that weekend, and some were traveling since it was Mother's Day weekend here in Thailand (held on the Queen's birthday, which was Monday).  They were very friendly, and were used to having foreign visitors. 

They put the words to songs on the overhead in both Thai and English, although the singing was lead all in Thai.  They had headphone jacks on the backs of the pews on the right side of the auditorium, and they provided headphones for all those who don't speak Thai, both travelers as well as a few members there who are new to Thailand. The daughter of one of the elders, who speaks excellent English and works for an international company, sits in the sound booth and translates everything.  

Hard Rock Bangkok

Years ago, when I was studying abroad in Belgium, my friends and I started a tradition of trying to go to Hard Rock whenever we could.  We would eat baguettes and drink water for several other meals to afford it.  It was, for most of us, our first time living outside the US and Hard Rock was a little trip home, at least through our stomachs.

Looking back now, it seems very silly that we found European food so exotic.  Now it's all lumped together in my mind as "western food" and I can't imagine how we had any difficulty finding familiar food. We were sheltered for sure.

However, all these years I've still kept the tradition on my own, when I could.  I almost always get the same thing-a barbecue pork sandwich with onion rings.  I guess that's the closest I can get to Tennessee food.

It's still fun to go, especially if they play good music.  I found the one in Bangkok, off of Siam Square, easily.  I enjoyed the usual-although the buns here are too sweet-while reading the (thus far) soporific Swann's Way by Proust.  Just to say, I tried twice to put that title in italics, but my phone doesn't like italics.  It keeps autocorrecting it away and I give up.  Anyway, all this to say, I splurged on Hard Rock for old time's sake, but it was a lot more fun with a crowd of noisy friends. 

Jim Thompson House

After leaving the museum, I made one more sight-seeing stop for the day.  Down a nondescript side street was a place I'd never heard of before arriving in Bangkok, but Lonely Planet spoke highly of it, and besides, it was on the way to dinner. 

Jim Thompson, born in 1906, was an architect in New York until World War II. During the war, he joined the military and was eventually sent to Asia towards the end of the war. He fell in love with Thailand, and was impressed by the cottage industry of weaving silk.  He saw the commercial possibilities of the beautiful cloth, and took samples back to New York designers. He returned to Thailand and became a successful entrepreneur, creating many jobs as he built up the silk industry. 

In the 1950s, he moved six traditional Thai stilt houses to a lot alongside a canal in Bangkok and combined them to create a beautiful home to showcase Thai architecture and his collection of Thai antiques. 

A few years later, Mr. Thompson was vacationing with friends in Malaysia when he went for a walk into the jungle by himself.  They searched for days, but never found a trace of him again. 

His home was opened to tours, and many people come to appreciate his house and furnishings.

Friendly Swarm of Children

Before I left the museum, I sat on a shady bench along the walkway just inside the fence to rest my feet a moment and to check the map to get my bearings before heading to the next place on my mental list.  Suddenly, I was surrounded.  A group of curious twelve-year-olds, most dressed in matching hot pink t-shirts, were gathered around.  The most outgoing proffered a gift of one of those coins put through a press and stamped with a scene of Bangkok, the type you see at most tourist traps.

When I didn't immediately run away (I couldn't have anyway, I was surrounded), they concluded I must be friendly.  I smiled at them and they began searching their brains for English words learned in school to question me with. 

They were excited to hear that it am American, and that I am a teacher, and were surprised that I have no children.  I answered questions until they were called by the adults in their group for a group picture. 

National Museum

After I left the palace, I made my way through the tuk tuk drivers and drink stands to the nearby national museum.  I was rather expecting a Louvre-like behemoth as the guidebook said it was the largest in southeast Asia, but it turned out to be a gated collection of several small to moderately sized buildings. Apparently there's not a lot of competition in the large museum category in this part of Asia. 

The first small building by the gate held a reasonably modern display giving an overview of Thai history, information that will be useful as I travel north to Sukhothai, the original Thai capital. 

When I stepped into the next building, I stepped into the 1960s. There was no air conditioning, so fans pushed the musty air around the high-ceiling rooms. Cabinets that seemed they ought to be covered in dust (but weren't) were crammed with collections of interesting items: Chinese puppets, crowns, Buddha figurines, swords, porcelain dishes.  One of the largest rooms had old pallets used for carrying members of the royal family in processions, in varying degrees of luxury. There weren't many explanatory signs; those that there were were mostly type-written, with a few even hand-written. 

I wandered around the central buildings for about an hour; there were more rooms in side buildings as well, but I had seen enough to get the idea. 

The Grand Palace

In the same complex with the Wat Phra Keaw is the Grand Palace.  The beautiful palace was built, in part, to show the legitimacy of the Thai kingdom. In an era when European powers were conquering and colonizing the "backward" southeast Asian peoples, the king of Siam reacted not by fighting, but by setting out to show that his kingdom was not backward and uncivilized.  He adopted many Victorian customs and fashions, and worked to show western leaders that he was an educated equal.  He hired tutors to teach his children English and European customs so that they could be diplomatic with the new powers in the region.  You might have seen the fictionalized version in the movie The King and I . 

I suppose it worked; Thailand is the only southeast Asian country that was never colonized by any foreign power, which they are quite proud of.
The palace was beautiful and the weather perfect; there's not much else to say about it since the inside is not open to visitors.  It's still used for coronations and some other state ceremonies, but the royal family have long since moved to a modern palace in a quieter area in the north part of the city. 

Wat Phra Keaw

My second full day in Bangkok, which happened to be a Saturday, I had every intention of getting up early and being a model productive tourist. Yeah. I left the hostel at eleven again.  In the end, I had more than enough time to do everything I meant to do for the day, so I'm glad I didn't rush. 

I walked back down to the river and caught a ferry down to the golden palace.  More about the palace in my next post-first, the temple in the same complex, Wat Phra Keaw. 

The first thing I saw as I neared the temple grounds was a shiny golden stupa.  Various temple buildings were crowded into the walled area; the biggest and most ornate is tiled in blue with gold columns; huge golden snakes form the bannisters on each set of steps. 

This largest temple houses the Emerald Buddha, one of the most famous Buddha statues in Thailand.  The Buddha is actually carved of a large piece of jasper.  At some point in its history, it was covered in stucco to conceal its worth and protect it from theft, and then it was forgotten. It was in a temple in northern Thailand; one day a monk bumped it and knocked a chunk of plaster from the nose. To his surprise, a green stone glittered underneath.

His first thought was emerald, and the name Emerald Buddha has stuck although it was later found to be jasper when it was completely uncovered.

Still covered in stucco, the Buddha was sent on a journey to the new capital city, Bangkok.  Along the way it was captured by Lao forces, but the Thais eventually recaptured it.

The buddha now is the crowning piece of a huge, intricately carved gilded throne taking up nearly the whole back wall of the temple. Frankly, the green buddha seemed rather dwarfed by all the surrounding opulence.  In such a large setting, it was a bit underwhelming.  Then again, after the reclining buddha the day before, it would take a lot to impress me.  Being carved of a solid piece of a precious stone, though, it's very large and I'm sure it's priceless. 

I read that the Emerald Buddha's ornaments are changed three times of year so that he is appropriately dressed for each season: hot, rainy, and cool.  This is done in a ceremony presided over by the king. 

Unfortunately, pictures aren't allowed in the room with the buddha, but there was so much to take pictures of outside that I didn't mind.  Besides the buildings, there were life-sized shiny gold half-bird half-human statues, and a large model of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. 

Pad Thai

I finally got some pad thai, at a sidewalk stand near the Tha Thien dock.  I've been looking forward to it; it's probably the Thai dish I've heard the name of most often. 

If you aren't familiar with it, it's noodles, fried egg, either shrimp or chicken, and small pieces of vegetables, all mixed in a thick peanut sauce. 

I expected to like it.  Unfortunately, it will not be making my favorites list.  It was the peanut sauce- I love peanut butter, but I just can't seem to get used to peanuts mixed with foods other than bread.  It was edible, but not something I'd order again in a hurry.