We were so busy, busy in Bangkok that I didn’t have time to do daily entries. So the following is organized by day and theme. We’ll see how it goes.
February 14
On the first day we visited Wat Arun.
An aside about public transportation.
To get to the Wat we took the one skytrain line to another, waited twenty minutes for the express boat and then switched from that to the cross river ferry. It’s about 6-7 km (maybe 4 miles) as the crow flies, but it took us over an hour to get there. And, mind you, this is the fasted way to get there and the Wat, like our hotel, is in the central part of Bangkok. Unforch, Bangkok just has bad public transportation and abysmal traffic To be fair, the public transportation is really quite nice – very beautifully air conditioned (do you here my words, MTA?) and very fast. It just doesn’t go anywhere. There is an elevated skytrain with two lines and maybe 20 stops. It was supposed to go all the way to the airport – they built the pillars all the way out there – but the funding dried up and now its just a skeleton of an El (2nd Avenue subway, anyone?). Then there is an equally nice subway, also with two lines totaling about 30 stops. And, of course, if you want to switch from the skytrain to the subway, you have to buy a whole new ticket.
And, for some reason, neither the subway nor the skytrain go anywhere near the tourist sites along the river. Hence the express boats. These run every twenty minutes or so (heavy on the “or so”) up the east coast of the river, stopping about every ½ mile. To get to the other side of the river, you then have to take a cross river ferry. Hence the train to the train to the boat to the boat to get to Wat Arun. Now, that whole trip only costs 63 baht, about $2.10, so it is very economical waste of time.
Wat Arun is one of the older wats in Bangkok; it pre-dates Bangkok’s ascension to capitalshiphood. Its main features are its beautiful five-prangs, with each prang looking slightly like a corncob (and is therefore, obviously, a Burmese style wat). 
The prangs are wonderfully decorated with broken pieces of Chinese pottery, many in the shape of flowers. It is a steep climb us the stairs of the main prang – definitely not Nannie-friendly steps. Going down, there was a Chinese woman in front of me who I was not certain was going to make it down. I am pretty sure I heard a lot of tasty Chinese curse words.
One wat down, dozens to go. Next was Wat Po across the river. The wat is a sprawling complex of bots (religious halls), buddhas, and schools (including the Thai massage school). It is probably best known for being home to the monu- (wait for it) (wait some more cause it’s really big) -mental Reclining Buddha. You basically cannot take a picture of the whole guy because the building around pretty much fits the Buddha and a narrow path for tourists to shuffle around. I am quite proud, however, of my Buddha toe picture.
We then wandered around the complex. The tourist to square foot ratio fell significantly once we took twenty steps away from the Reclining Buddha. We, unfortunately, had chosen the hottest part of the day to wander the dusty walks, so we were tired, hungry, and ever so slightly whiny when we reached the Wat Po Thai Massage school, which trains most of the non-naughty Thai masseuses in Bangkok. We weren’t feeling very massage-y, but the guidebook told us we should do it, 
so damn it, we signed up for thirty minute massages.
When it was our turn, we were brought to the back area where two trailers sat. Each trailer had about six beds right next to each other, such that sometimes you and your neighbor would touch, or such that I inadvertently touched my hairy neighbor way more than I wanted. Awkward.
Aside about Thai Massages.
Umm, they kind of hurt. We heard many times that Thai massage is like have yoga done to you. The masseuse is all over the place, bending you, pressing on muscles and joints, pulling on limbs. At one point, my lady was sitting in between my feet, with a foot on either side of my thigh while pulling on my leg with both hands. At least that is what I think was happening. At another point, I was seated Indian style with my hands clasped behind my head as she squatted behind me with her knees around my back; she was swinging me back and forth over her legs stretching out my back. So that was strange. And the pressure points she worked with her hands, her elbows, her feet, her fingers of steel, or any other available body parts were . . . well, it was kind of like this: Hmm, that feels niii . . . ow . . . OW . . . oooOOOW . . . ow. Hmm, that felt kind of nice. So it is not a necessarily relaxing experience, but at the end, you are totally relaxed and feel great. And I didn’t get that next day tension that sometimes develops after a mediocre massage. Definitely a good experience. Especially for $7.
After out Thai massages, we decided it was (past) time for lunch. Neither of our guidebooks had good places to eat in the touristy area, but said that the nearby National Museum had a good cafeteria. So we skipped the Grand Palace complex, right next to Wat Po, and went instead to the Museum and took a peek around after a snack. Unfortunately, that left us with no time to do the Grand Palace that day, but gave us something to look forward to for the next day.
The National Art Museum was very much like a social studies lessons. The first group of rooms led us through the history of Thailand with little miniature diorama-type things, with little Thai soldiers fighting little plastic battles. We were quite interested in the succession of the Thai kings since Bangkok was founded in the late 18th century. All the kings, in additional to having ridiculously long given names, were called Rama upon their ascension to the throne. Rama IV was the king in The King and I and the future Rama V was one of the pupils (though Thais are allegedly insulted by the way the book describes their kings as a bit of a fop). After a series of not very long reigns, the current king, the much beloved Rama IX has been king for over sixty years and is current longest reigning monarch in the world.
Aside about the king.
People here love the king. Love the king. His picture is everywhere. Calendars, street-wide banners, bill boards. But he is getting up in years and I have a sneaking suspicion that the role of king is currently being played by Victor Garber, who is the spitting image of Rama IX. This is much like my theory that Leslie Nielson was portraying Pope JP II for those last couple of years, at least for those Sunday blessings from the balcony.
Sadly the king’s older sister died recently. We first notice in Bangkok because parts of the Grand Palace were closed for the lying in state. All of a sudden we noticed her picture, framed in black cloth everywhere! How it took us almost a week to notice is beyond me. (Oh, right, we spent the first 4+ days blissed out on the beach).
So we figured that she had died in the last week or so. Oh no, she died on January 1st. Because she was much loved by king and people (in large part thanks to her efforts in developing poverty-stricken rural areas), the king declared a 100-day mourning period. Now that’s sitting sivah.
The main building of the art museum also contained lots of interesting Thai art and artifacts from past centuries, typical stuff like pots, plates, weapons, elephant chairs, ya know. Our favorites were probably the wooden carved and gilded palanquins (= carried thrones – new word!) that were carried in processions. One such throne had to be carried by 50-60 men. Not a lot of room for personal space there. There was debate among the two of us as to whether the intricately carved elephant tusks in one gallery were amazing works of art (me) or gross (Maura). One such tusk had latticework and pillars surrounding the outside with raised motifs on the inside of that carving. It was really amazing.
After that, because we were so pooped, we decided to take a cab or tuk tuk home. I mean, could it really take longer than public transportation? (Answer: yes.) The first 15 minutes were quite pleasant. The next 60 were less so. So, yes, traffic is just as bad in Bangkok as you read about.
Aside about tuk tuks.
Tuk tuks are like those wee vans they drive around in Europe, but open in the back with a seat for tourists (and locals). They are noisy, smelly, and awfully uncomfortable when it’s hot. But awfully convenient in a pinch and (by American standards) dirt cheap. Our hour + tuk tuk ride cost about 6 dollars. [In fact, I was in Maura’s apartment on the UWS the day I got back and, coming back to the UES, I was really missing the whole tuk tuk thing.]
One thing about tuk tuk drivers is that they will try to take you to their cousin’s friend’s mom’s shop “on the way” to wherever you are going. Our guy kept asking us something about gas, kept handing us a card that said something about free Esso gas. I did what I always do when someone is speaking to me in a foreign language and I have no idea what they are saying – smile and look non-committal. So with this guy, we thought maybe he needed gas. But that didn’t seem to be it. We then figured that he was trying to get us to make a stop so we could get “free” gas? Why would we want gas? I’m pretty sure they don’t allow that in your carry-on bag. So after just smiling and nervously laughing for the first few minutes, and after we decided he was trying to get us to stop somewhere, we just started saying no, No, NO. Needless to say, he was much less friendly at the end of our journey than at the beginning.
