The Oriental is a modern update to the original hotel in Bangkok that was home to many famous writers in the 19^th century. The old wing has been supplemented with a new tower where we stayed in a spacious room with a couple of nice balconies. The old wing has a room called the Authors' Lounge which features all of the famous people who sat there on the river dreaming up deathless prose (just like us, except we are at 37,000 feet over Madagascar as we write this, one of the few remaining African countries that has not changed its name to something we never studied in school).

Anyhow, we had a drink in the Authors' Bar and visited the "trophy room". The Oriental has received numerous awards and was rated the best hotel in the world in one survey. They have a room in the old wing just devoted to their plaques and awards. It's sort of like ex-jocks with a wall of trophies that no one but himself cares about. It's a great hotel, but this would look better in the manager's conference room, not by the Authors' Bar. We had dinner in their indoor seafood restaurant overlooking the river, as we did not want to brave the heat and humidity at the one on the riverbank. It was a good visual introduction to the Bangkok river life.

The river is sort of like a cross between the Hong Kong harbor and the West Side Highway in New York rolled into one. It has boats going in all directions at once, most of them carrying people. The boats range from 4 person canoes to big ferries that resemble the Star Ferry. The most unique form of transportation is a "long tailed" boat that looks like a cross between a gondola in Venice and an Indy 500 car. A car engine powers the long tail boat with the throttle on a long tiller controlled by the driver at the back of the boat. These things tear up and down the river sounding like hot rods, smelling like them, and leaving a great plume of water behind them. The passengers need to sit up front as the motor and driver are in the back and they ride through the water on an angle when empty. All this just to act as water taxis and transport a few people. Henry Ford would be proud.

The other end of the spectrum from these overpowered boats are the underpowered "tuk-tuk" taxis, which are motorized three-wheelers with a two-person cab behind the drivers seat. The problem is that sometimes up to 6 or more people crowd into the two seats with what appears to be all of their worldly possessions. These zip through the streets once they get a head of steam, but a little old lady with a cane can beat them out of the gate at the traffic lights. They are small and can fit between cars in traffic jams, which is their main advantage.

We had decided to forgo both of the above forms of transportation and go with our hired guide service. The guide showed up at the hotel the next morning with the air-conditioned minivan and a driver. It looked like a great deal and we went off to explore the city and the Grand Palace with our private van, driver, and guide, Lik. We never found out our guide's full name but we found out the next day that the other guides called him "Daddy" in the office, as he was the oldest guide in the company with over 30 years of experience. Lik took us off through the crowded streets of Bangkok for our airport-arranged tour of the Grand Palace.

Bangkok has over 7 million people, which is about 10% of the population of the country. New buildings soar over old ones and the skyline is dotted with many new office towers a la Hong Kong. There are also many uncompleted buildings, which is a remnant of the Asian Economic crisis in the late 1990's. The traffic is horrible and the pollution quite bad but the old temples and palaces are a reminder of what the city must have looked like before it started to "modernize".

We got to the Grand Palace and were joined by a second guide who would give us the detailed tour of the Palace. Two guides, a driver and an air-conditioned minivan for 10 bucks - we were happy that we had not listened to the hotel driver! The second guide, Jackie, spoke excellent English along with several other languages and was a fount of knowledge about the palace. She was also an amateur photographer and was constantly pointing out the best angles and places to take pictures from. She also used her language skills to shoo the large tour groups out of the way so we could take pictures without 50 other tourists in them. Finally, she got into the mood of the occasion with Arnie and was soon posing him in places we would never have dared to (hard to believe isn't it?). Even the more reserved "Daddy" started doing this later in the day. Arnie's charms are just too hard to resist.

Jackie gave us a lot of information on the history of the palace complex and how the various kings of Thailand added new buildings with different styles over the years. The architecture is unique to Thailand with elements borrowed over time from India (the Buddhist influence), China, and Europe. As you can see, the buildings are very beautiful and many are covered in gold leaf. They are no longer covered in jewels but colored glass as the many "tourists" over the centuries regarded them as interesting souvenirs.

One of the main decorative elements on the buildings is Chinese pottery (usually shards from cups) used as tiles, which are then used to build up various mosaics. One of the kings regarded this as a useful lesson in the value of recycling because so many cups shipped to Bangkok were broken when they arrived!

Statues of various demons and statues imported from China guard the various palace areas. The Chinese statues were actually used as ballast in the ships that traded with China and were recycled as decorations in the palace.

One of the highlights of the Grand Palace tour was the temple of the emerald Buddha. There was a ceremony going on and we could not take pictures. We will add a scan when we get home. This was the first of a number of beautiful temples we would see. Daddy was a devout Buddhist and gave us many insights into the religion and the impact it has on Thai life, including the fact that each male is expected to be a monk for three months before he is eligible to marry. Daddy was adamant that he would not let any of his daughters marry a man who did not spend three months as a monk, and that he would expel a son from his home if he refused to do this.

The Grand Palace tour convinced us that the tour we had chosen was a good way to see Bangkok and we signed up for the more expensive (relatively) afternoon tour of three other temples. "Expensive" is a relative term as the whole day cost less than breakfast at the Oriental!

The next stop on the temple tour was the Marble Temple, which was, built in the 19^th century by the first Thai king who studied in Europe. It is constructed of Italian marble and has a beautiful gold covered Buddha in the temple. The grounds have many smaller buildings and courtyards, which are used by the Thais to entertain family and friends. They can eat and picnic there, after first offering food to the monks.

The next temple was at Wat Po, home of the giant reclining Buddha. This is a smiling Buddha that is 151 feet long and covered with gold leaf. It is so big that the feet alone are over 10 feet high. Arnie would get lost between his toes as you can see. The back of the Buddha has a row of 108 of tin cups, for the 108 auspicious signs of the Lord Buddha, in each of which you deposit a coin for good fortune. You can see Gisele doing this as an appeasement to the rain Buddha since we were enjoying a bright and sunny day.

There were statues resembling Europeans at Wat Po, which Daddy told us represented Marco Polo. The guidebooks claim they are statues of European demons. This is more likely as the Thais are very proud of the fact that they are the only South East Country that was never colonized by European powers. They credit the wise powers of their kings to this achievement, not the wisdom of "Anna" as shown in The King and I and the recent remake, which was showing on the airplanes.

Large monuments have been built throughout the courtyards and are used to hold the ashes of rich or important people. The courtyards are so crowded now that this practice has been stopped. However, as we would see later in the trip, each home has a small monument in the yard, which is used for this practice.

The final stop was the temple of the Golden Buddha. This is a solid gold Buddha that weighs 5 TONS. When you go to visit it, you think the guide has made a mistake as it is in a small working class neighborhood temple (there are over 400 temples in Bangkok and 40,000 in Thailand). The Buddha had been covered in plaster centuries ago in Northern Thailand to disguise it from invaders. Eventually everyone who knew about this died and it was then regarded as just another ordinary statue for hundreds of years. Early this century, a monk from this neighborhood temple found out its true content when it was chipped. He  arranged to move it to his home temple in Bangkok and it has become a major attraction for this small temple.

It had been a long day and we had booked a dinner at the hotel restaurant that featured Thai dancing. We went back to clean up but arranged first to extend our tour the next day with a visit to the countryside with the same tour service.

The restaurant is actually across the river from the Oriental next to the Peninsula hotel even though it is a part of our hotel. The hotel runs a shuttle ferry service to the restaurant. We had an excellent Thai dinner and enjoyed the show as the dancers performed a variety of traditional Thai dances. Each one acts out a story based upon Thai legends and the performers wear very beautiful costumes. We were given front row seats and had a great view as you can see. We went right back to the hotel after the show as we were going to be picked up at 7:30 am the next morning for a visit out into the countryside.

Email Gisèle

Email Larry