Siamese Malls

On the Sunday of my 2nd weekend, we took the Skytrain to Siam City Center - which is basically a large maze of interconnected, wonderfully air-conditioned malls.

The Skytrain is so called because..well..it's really high up. You need to walk up a really tall staircase to get up to the train platform, which looks like this if you make the hike:


When you get to the Siam City Center, one of the malls you can go in is called the MBK center.


The MBK center has every kind of electronic thing that you could want to buy. Just don't expect a huge discount for most fancy gadgets. For example, there were plenty of iPhones and iPads on display to buy...but the prices on these were typically more expensive than in the US. Same with some of the other stores in the mall. I stopped in the Lacoste store half out of curiosity, half hoping I could get a good deal. Nope. $90 dollars for a polo shirt. Not happening.

My overall opinion is that it's fun to walk around and see the different things to buy but not a whole lot of things to buy at any amazing deal price. I did get three DVDs for a few bucks each. I'm sure they were legit. But it's something to do and a place to see. Plus the people watching is great. And it's the place to go if you're a foreigner...pretty sure we outnumbered the Thai!


This is real life spider in Bangkok! Scary! No..it's blow up thing that they have all around the city (on the side of sky scrapers, you name it) for gum. Yeah, gum.


More amazing Thai food. Yum!



Since I don't have any bus pictures left, how about this picture of a guy riding his bike...in a flood!

Bikes are the lifeblood of Thailand. It really doesn't matter where you are - in the city, in the country, on the expressway .... sunny, monsoon .... whatever. They will find a way to ride their bikes where they need to go.

And the best part (for them) - bikes can do whatever they damn well please. Road is jammed with traffic? Fine, I'll drive on the side walk. The place you need to go to is on the wrong side of the expressway? Fine, I'll drive up the shoulder...going the wrong way...on the expressway! And they all filter up to the front of red-lights, in between the stopped cars. So each green light looks like a gum-ball 3000 for bikes and scooters.

Then there are the "taxi" bikes. Basically, it seems that if you own a bike in Thailand you can put on a pink shirt and people will wave you down for a ride. They'll just jump on the back of your bike and pay you money to take them somewhere in the city. And it may be a cultural thing, but girls will not straddle when they ride on back of the taxi-bike! They have both legs off to the side! So the guy could be zipping in and out of stopped cars going 40...but she'll be damned if she's not going to ride that bike like a proper lady! (with no helmet of course)


Well, I think this is the last post for my TY-land adventure.

I really did have a great time. I want to give a lot of thanks to my hosts from Benchmark, Phunnaporn and Kitti. They showed me a lot of great sites and places in Thailand that I would've never known about or seen without them.

I greatly appreciated the chance to see and experience a completely different culture and way of life.


I hope you liked the pictures. I've posted all the pictures from my camera here (some of them aren't that great): http://picasaweb.google.com/108820931934536171254/Thailand#


See ya!
Tyler

Chinese Temple

So I was only supposed to be in TY-land for one weekend. Yep. Then my trip got extended.

So on the 2nd Saturday I got to visit a giant Chinese built, Buddhist temple in Nonthaburi province (just outside Bangkok). The official name is: Wat Boromracha Kanchanapisek Anusorn. Try googling that once.

So it's definitely a cool place to look around and see. A lot of really cool architecture and statues and things like that.


So here is the temple from the outside. Very Chinese style architecture - if you know what I mean. Apparently, it took them 12 years to build this thing, all by hand.

Some gold guys in a glass case. I guess they don't want anyone breathing on them wrongly.

These gold guys, on the other hand, you can breath on them however you want.

Look closely at the statue of the god in back of the table - he's got 1000 hands!

Very detailed imprinting in the ceiling. Take that Michelangelo!

Even more detailed ceiling work! Wow! Plus a chandelier!

Large gold guys, probably around 20 ft tall each. I wouldn't even think about breathing on them, lest you be banned from Thailand !! (probably not..but don't try it)

More cool details in the wall/ceiling. I can see why it took 12 years..

Detailed architectural work on the exterior. Amazing stuff

And last but certainly not least...the gong of 1000 truths! It is said that the gong has mythical powers...powers to grant the wishes of those with a pure soul....but also the power to bring a terrible, terrible curse upon those with impure souls who try to ring it....!!!!

Ok just kidding...it's just a gong. But still cool

Amphawa Floating Market

Time to upload the rest of my pictures, sorry for taking so long!

The last stop in my whirlwind tour of TY-land that Saturday was a trip to Amphawa. This place has the feel of a smaller, rural village on the river and is about an hour away from Bangkok. I suppose it's about like going to Red Wing from Minneapolis.

So we drive an hour out to this place, which is awesome I might add because the A/C was on full blast and I really needed it by this time!

My hosts directed the driver to a local place on the river so we could have dinner. The food was blissful. The thing in the middle of the picture below is like finely shredded fish that is then deep fried into a mountain of crispy deliciousness. Honestly, I loved every bite of food there.


So how to describe the Amphawa floating market? Ok, imagine a smallish river, maybe even a canal... and both sides of it are jam-packed with shops. Shops as far as you can see up and down each side. Of course, that's not nearly enough people trying to sell you something in one place. Because in addition to the side shops, they have dozens of vendors literally in floating canoes that come up to the shore and try to sell you more stuff! And the weirdest thing is that usually these tiny canoes have a full kitchen worth of cooking food inside of them!

And if that wasn't enough, it seems like half of Bangkok wanders down there on the weekend to walk around and buy things.

It was a pretty good time, even though I have to admit I was more or less beat out of my mind and was in no mood to buy anything. We just walked up and down each side and then went back.

But it was still a really cool place to visit and experience.





Sorry I'm out of bus pictures. :(

JJ market

The second place we went to is called the JJ Market. It's a combination outdoor (sort've) and indoor market/mall/mass of humanity.

Here you can see the exterior of the mall part. It's got the same basic intention of a suburban Mpls mall (like Southdale), but the execution is a bit different. Still, I would call the "experience" of this place much more tame compared to the outdoor market.


Here is the real thing: the outdoor market.

It's tough to describe this place using only words. Maybe...flea market/garage sale on crack/meth/steroids? Any possible thing that a human could desire, they have a place that sells it here. If you enter the 'structure' shown to the left, just beware that it's like entering a dungeon in Zelda....every room has 2 or 3 ways you can go, but you may never figure out how to leave.

If you like t-shirts and decorations made of all types of materials..you could spend literally days in this thing, checking it all out. It goes forever.


Seriously, check this out:

This is a picture of just one wall of one store that sells nothing but printed text. Every conceivable volume of every kind of book, newspaper or magazine is somewhere in this shop.

(here you can see one of my hosts, in the pink, rushing to get out of the picture...TOO LATE! muahaha...)

And here was a picture of my in front of the main river that flows through Bangkok, the Chao Phraya. (as you can see I already switched to shorts after nearly having a heat stroke at the palace)


Annnnd a bus:

This is Crystal Palace

I had a whirlwind adventure this past Saturday. I will try to break the posts up into three to discuss the three places I went.

First up: the royal palace!....of TY-LAND! (Bangkok is the capitol, you know)

If you've never seen TY money, here is what it looks like (you need this to get inside the palace):

And here are some pictures of the palace:










Couple things worth noting here. First off, it was easily over 90 degrees F in TY-land on this day...same as every day....and of course the pounding sun was in no short supply.

They won't let you into the palace unless you have long pants on. Seriously. If you have shorts they force you to wear these ridiculous pajama looking things.

That's why the picture of me standing next to the royal guard (guy in white) has me looking about ready to pass out and sweating quite profusely.


Lots of gold in this palace...and elephants. I REALLY wanted to take that one smaller elephant home with me...but it takes 4 men to lift it. Not going fit in the overhead.


And I will end each post with a fancy-pants TY-land bus:

The Denny's of Thailand

Sorry I've been lazy,

Ok, first up is the place I was out to lunch at my first day here. It's called "MK". Someone referred to it as the Denny's of Thailand...must be an American.


So you go in the place and sit down and they bring out boiling pots of water that are placed on heaters built right into the table top (not sure if they're induction or what, but seems like the risk of burning hands is high). Then they bring out plates with food that is then placed into the boiling water and served family style. They also have different things you can order on the side like meats, noodles, etc. For drink I had what was essentially a blended watermelon. And for desert they have ice cream with a bunch of weird stuff in it (rice, beans, corn, etc.). I think it's just for the texture because it all tastes like ice cream. Really good actually.

And you get a small bowl of red sauce that is like Sriracha but about half as hot. Then they give you chiles and minced garlic that you can add to it to taste. I was ready to start drinking this stuff.

I could probably eat myself to death in a place like that.


I want to dedicate the second part of this post to the buses of Thailand. My...oh my. I've defined three criteria that determine the rating of a bus in Thailand:
1) Height - the taller your bus is, the better it is. I've seen multiple buses that have to be approaching 20 feet tall. I'm not even kidding you. When you see these things...it's like "wait a second...there was a design engineering group somewhere in the world that decided it would be a good idea to manufacture something like this?" It seriously looks like it's about to tip over every time it changes lanes. It's ridiculous. I don't have a picture of this one, but I think it's this: http://www.scania.com/products-services/buses-coaches/intercity-coach/irizarpb/

2) brightly colored paint job featuring as many anime characters as will fit on the side of the bus. Picture is worth a 1000 words, and this is a mild paint job compared to some I've seen:


3) lights, again I wish I had a picture of this because the one above does not do justice to some of the buses I've seen...they've seriously got like 30-50 lights on the front. They must consider it a good bus when it can blind people 50 meters away.

Viewpoint

I wasn't going to do an update yet, but I couldn't resist. Check out this view from the 16th floor patio:






This is basically just a 180 degree sweep...this same view roughly is on the other side as well. Someone decided that downtown Bangkok should have as many buildings as possible.


The plane ride was not brutal, but I wouldn't do it for fun. Mostly just long. My plan had been to stay up the entire trip and then fall blissful into sleep upon arriving at the hotel. Nope. I fell asleep on both plane trips and only slept from 2am - 6am. Hopefully better sleep tonight.