March 15th - Bangkok

Tucked into our tuk-tuk! (Yikes...no seat belts!)

Bangkok is a very exotic and colorful city. Even the taxis come in bold neon colors….red, orange and electric blue. The most adventuresome part of our day in Bangkok was touring the city in a tuk-tuk. This is a motorized three-wheeled rickshaw that is open on the sides…. not an ideal mode of travel on rainy days! The name “tuk-tuk” comes from the sound its two-stroke engine makes. Thank goodness our driver was young and had very fast reflexes….weaving through the crazy traffic of Bangkok was a hundred times scarier than climbing the Sydney Bridge! We saw temples (their exquisite architectural detail kept our cameras busy), Buddhas (over 90% of the Thai people are Buddhist), Thai silks, and the Grand Palace. Oh!! And also Starbucks (!!) for a long-anticipated fix!

Superstition is central to Asian culture and Bangkok is clearly a city bewitched by “the evil eye.” Spirit houses, which look a little like elaborate birdhouses, are evident everywhere you look. These are shrines erected to keep the spirit beings, or “phii”, happy and quiet so they don’t interfere in the everyday life of the mortals around them. Offerings are religiously left in these small shrines: food, trinkets… maybe even an alcoholic beverage!

Our on-board lecturer gave us this smattering of useful information: The Thais are a very proud and respectful people….but TOUGH! Thailand is the only Southeast Asian nation never to have been colonized by a European power. We were warned not to drink the water, to keep our feet flat on the floor (it’s a sign of disrespect to show the bottom of your feet), and never to point or shake hands (a matter of hygiene….)We were also told that Bangkok is “the Venice of the East.” This seemed a lot more plausible than calling Saigon “the Paris of the Orient.” There is indeed a network of canals in the city, even though many of them have been paved over and are being smothered by the exhaust of thousands of vehicles…. and the exotic longtail boats plying the Chao Paya River do resemble long stretched-out gondolas.

Bangkok was recently rated “the hottest city in the world” by the World Meteorological Organization. This fact alone is enough to keep it off our top ten list!