Royal palace and canal tours

Day 4   Tuesday, April 3, 2018  Bangkok

Today we had an extensive tour of the Grand Palace, where past kings lived until Rama IX and X, who live elsewhere. The residence in this photo (Chakri Maha Prasat, begun in 1872) was built by Rama V, who was the first Thai (Siamese) king to visit London. It combines traditional Thai architecture with western architecture the king enjoyed in London. Under the current and previous king, this palace is used only to celebrate Royal events.

Janet and I had an interesting morning and breakfast, because we were an hour early! As I was awakening, I looked at the clock next to me and it said 6 am. Since we had to meet our bus at 7:30, we decided to get up and get going. We got to the breakfast restaurant at 6:20 (it opened at 6:00), but thought it odd that we were the only ones there, and the servers seemed to just be hanging around. But when we entered, they hopped to and signaled for us to take the food. We continued to be the only ones there, so I showed someone my watch and asked if it really was 6:20? She just nodded yes, and motioned me to fill my plate.

Eventually a couple other people arrived, but the day before the place was crowded, so something seemed amiss. Anyway, we enjoyed our food, and finally left with the place still almost empty. When we got back to our room, we received a wake-up call, and then checked the cell phone to confirm we were an hour early! At that point, it was only 5:50, not 6:50. I was completely puzzled how we had screwed up, and curious why they were welcoming us in the restaurant at 5:20 if it wasn't supposed to open until 6:00?

In looking over the nightstand clock, I figured it out: In the dark of night, I had wanted to turn down the A/C, and its control buttons were on the clock (as were all the light switches). I had pressed a button that I thought was for the A/C, but it turned out it was a button to display the time in other time zones all over the globe. If you pressed it once, it displayed the time in Hong Kong, which was one hour earlier. Oh my. So, with an extra hour before our tour bus would depart, I uploaded my photos from the previous day, and Janet read a book on her iPad.

When we did get going at 7:30, we drove to the Grand Palace along, as Nu called it, their Champs-Elysees. It certainly was a grand boulevard, with national departments (e.g., Dept of Education, Agriculture, Tourism) on both sides of us, all in full National Capital glory. And down the center of the boulevard every 100 yards or so were these displays to their beloved King Rama IX.

Here's one more, but there were about 15 to 20 in all. The Thais don't call him "Rama IX", but rather by his actual name, Bhumibol Adulyadej, or King Bhumibol the Great. It's easier for me to call him Rama IX. He was born in the U.S., in Cambridge, MA while his father was getting a public health degree at Harvard. He was schooled in Switzerland.

Over the course of our 7 days of touring, Nu talked so often about the entire royal family, but mostly about Rama IX and his exemplary life. One of the king's accomplishments was as a musician; he was a jazz saxophone player and composer, playing New Orleans jazz. He also played the clarinet, trumpet, guitar, and piano. Throughout his life, he composed a total of 49 pieces, mostly jazz swing, but he also composed marches, waltzes, and Thai patriotic songs.

Scooters and motorcycles were everywhere (but no bicycles). At stop lights, they would squeeze between the cars to get to the front of the line, as I noticed out the bus window.

Nu said the king lay in state for a full year. The lines never ceased, 24/7. Nu waited in line 14 hours to see the casket, and he had only 20 seconds to bow on his knees to show his respect. When the king's body was finally cremated, it was done in an elaborate crematorium built for the occasion. Well, if I tried to write all the things Nu told us about the king, this entire blog would be about him.

Once inside the palace, Nu had us hurry to Wat Phra Kaew and its most famous site so that we could see it before the crowds got there. He clearly explained not to stop to take pictures of all the glorious sites until later, when we would for sure see them, but to walk straight to the famous temple. (One in our group hadn't been paying attention, because she ran to catch up to Nu to tell him to stop so she could take all her pictures. Nu had to re-explain his strategy and reassure her that she would have plenty of time for her photos later.)

In the picture above, Janet is standing in front of the shoe racks, where we had to remove our shoes before going inside the sacred Emerald Buddha Temple. This temple is said to be the most sacred in all of Thailand. It is a potent religio-political symbol and the protective image of Thai society.

No photos were allowed inside, so I stole this from the Internet. Emerald Buddha is a dark green statue about 26 inches tall, carved from a single jade stone. Except for the Thai King and, in his stead, the Crown Prince, no other persons are allowed to touch the statue. The King changes the cloak around the statue three times a year, corresponding to the summer, winter, and rainy seasons, an important ritual performed to usher good fortune to the country during each season.

 This is our group trying to get photos of the Emerald Buddha through the open front door, since no photos were allowed inside. Janet and I also tried that photo op, but neither picture came out. You can see that Nu's strategy to get to the temple quickly worked, because we were about the only ones there, and also inside when we went in. When we departed 15 minutes later, this same scene and inside were absolutely jammed with tourists.

 What the heck is this? Near the temple entrance there was a table with a supply of these lotus flowers and a bowl of "holy water" of some sort. Nu showed us how it brought good blessings if you dipped a lotus in the water and dabbed it on someone's head. Janet managed to bless me with one hand and take my picture in her other hand.

This is one side of the temple. All the gold you see is 24-carat gold, but hammered to be extremely thin. Nu had samples of the gold leaf to let us feel how thin and flimsy it was.

 Those are the steps to inside the temple. But just look at the lavish walls and ornate carvings!

Here's a close-up of the first two carvings to the left of the stairs that you can see in the previous photo. And it's all gold plated.

More of the fancy fancy.

Nu showed us the hand-painted plates along the outer wall of the temple.

After leaving the Emerald Buddha Temple, we walked by other fancy dancy structures in Wat Phra Kaew, of which there were many. We climbed up next to those two buildings, and I took the next photo...

...which is looking back at the Emerald Buddha Temple.

Besides the beautiful star of this photo, I also liked the two elephants behind her.

There was no end to photogenic sights.

Four mythical warriors guarding a portion of the Wat Phra Kaew.

Here's a smaller, but golden, mythical warrior guard.

Everything was made of gold.

And two MORE elaborate mythical guards. The palace was a visual masterpiece.

Nu asked for our cameras to take this posed photo of many of us. Janet and I didn't partake. This is Walter.

More spectacular structures!

Nu showed how you peel back the petals of a lotus flower to make it fully open and pretty. Lotus flowers are important to Buddhism, and we've already seen how they are carved into the stupas and other artwork everywhere. The meaning of the lotus flower represents rebirth as a reincarnation, or a symbol of purity.

 Here was Nu's finished flower, and he's showing it to one of us in the group. A fully blooming lotus flower signifies enlightenment, while a closed bud represents a time before enlightenment.

Nu explained that all Thai men become monks for about three months (longer if you an "inner calling"). He also did his stint, but his for only two weeks ("I was a fast learner!" LOL). He  described that the day begins at 4:30 am when they ring a bell to awaken everyone. You then meditate for one hour. At 6 am you walk about the village and accept offerings from the people. You eat whatever is offered to you, and you even have to beg at your own house! The only other meal of the day is between 11 am and noon. After that final meal, you nap, study, talk with people, and perhaps talk with prisoners or hospital patients.

Our group then walked out of the Thai-inspired Wat into the European designs of the Grand Palace grounds, where the Royal family used to live and where public ceremonies still take place. There were many armed guards scattered around the palace, because it's still a Royal facility.

Nu told us that this roof was in The King and I movie, so I took its picture. Now we want to see the movie again.

Yet another beautiful structure. Behind me was the Rama IX memorial display of his life, which we all slowly walked through to see examples of all the public good the king did during his life to endear Thai citizens.

I had a hard time not taking pictures of all the spectacular buildings and roofs and temples.

The Chakri Maha Prasat (the residence seen in the photo at the top of this posting) is in the background, and in the foreground is a structure for regal presentations. The king boards the structure from an elephant, which is why its porch is about four feet off the ground.

When our palace tour was done, we visited a little shop across the street to cool off and order a drink and/or snack. We then walked about 1/3 mile to the river to board our canal boat. Along the way, we passed by this bicycle wall art. The bikes continued along the wall way beyond what this photo shows.

The boat held only our group, and we boarded on the main river. Our selfie came out petty good, don't you think? These boats are long and skinny, with a big V-8 engine sitting open at the back, and a long flexible drive shaft sticking way out the back.

One of the first sights as we headed down river was Wat Arun, one of the more famous temples in Bangkok, and where the Emerald Buddha had been before moving to Wat Phra Kaew.

I took this picture because the yellow strip across the embankment shows the entire Thai name of this city. It's not simply "Bangkok". The word goes on forever, as you can see, and it was funny to hear Nu pronounce it. Seemed like he went on for 30 seconds saying the actual city name.

Here's the Royal Navy Headquarters, but I took the picture to illustrate another example of how they love displaying photos of the royal family. Rama IX and the Queen Mother are outer, and the current King Rama X is in the center.

After a time, we departed the main river and entered the canals. Here we are about to enter under the flood control gate.

This was one of the many shack dwellings along the canals.

There also were fancy temples and such, but the majority were like the next two pictures:

There is much poverty in Thailand.

The boat driver spotted this monitor lizard, stopped, and then backed up so we all could see it better.

A bit farther along, when we could see some fish in the water, the boat pulled over to a dock. The assistant got out and returned shortly with a sack of little bread loaves. We passed them around and tore off big chunks so we could toss pieces into the river. Well, almost immediately, the water got churned up with these huge fish fighting to eat the bread. It was quite a sight! Nu explained that we were in front of a temple (however, it did not look like the typical lavish temples we'd seen elsewhere), and fishermen do not fish in front of a temple, and the fish have learned this and gather in those spots.

More fancy structures along the canal.

Lions and tigers decorated the wall of this lavish building.

Love that Thai architecture.

This man was paddling an old floating-market boat. Nu explained that these canals used to have a big floating market, but no more. It got too crazy, apparently. But the little boats are still used for personal transport, such as this fellow we went by.

Amazing how some places dump their junk and it apparently can just remain there as an eyesore and probably health hazard.

We finally found our way back out onto the main river, and headed back north to end at our hotel dock. I looked at a map later to realize that we traveled a LONG ways south on our canals to the west of the main river.

We had a free afternoon, so I went to the fitness room and Janet went to the pool. I later joined her at the pool, and ordered a beer from the pool bar. We laughed at how expensive it was relative to all the other beers we'd been ordering - 700 Bhat for 12 fl oz vs 100 Bhat for 22 fl oz everywhere else.

We left at about 5:00 on the bus, with about 14 others, for an optional dinner and show about the Thai culture. It sounded much better than it turned out to be. First of all, it took an eternity to get there because the freeways were essentially a parking lot. We just sat there inching along for over an hour. Then, it turned out to be jammed with tour buses, and all the people in the huge food hall were having the buffet dinner. It was okay, but we weren't as thrilled with the dishes compared to the offerings we'd had the night before.

 Here's our group arriving. The entire complex was devoted to putting on this same show every night of the year for tourists.

On arriving, we went straight to the buffet dinner, along with throngs in the huge hall. There's Janet on the left, as our group headed off to the food lines.

This photo was in the show grounds outside the theater, where there had been a lot of hoopla for the tourists, but we didn't attend this. They had live elephants and everything, but this photo was when that part was over and we were entering the huge theater for the show.

I fell asleep for almost the entire show. Time zone changes, the beer with dinner, and the slow action in the show combined to provide me a nice nap. Janet liked it only so-so. It was a beautiful presentation, but hard to follow its meaning.

Janet: Sleeping during the show was evidently a good choice, as on both sides of me were people snoring. While the dance and drama in the performance depicted Thailand's history, it was very long, just like their history, with no means of translation. The dance was more of an acting-out, rather than dance. I was glad when it was over and Ken woke up.