Yes, I am going to catch up on the travels while we are in Guatemala for two weeks at Susan's brother's house. Steve married Barbara, a wonderful women he met while they both lived near New Haven. They have been married 20 year now and moved to Guatemala 10 years ago,where she has a large and wonderful extended family.
I also want to welcome (belatedly) some new site members. I just noticed the icon which shows the new member notification and we have a number who signed up in the last 4 months. I am such a technophobe, it truly has taken me this long to even notice the notification flags.
BANGKOK
A city of 10 million people. Amazing architecture where one tall building after another was clearly designed to impress and catch your eye. Having been in the construction business for 30 years, some of the buildings really are marvels. The parts of the city we discovered were pretty clean and far less chaotic than Saigon, or even Hanoi. We were not rushed from all sides by vendors and apparently begging is illegal. We thought it was a nice city with some outstanding tourist attractions .
We spent 4 days in Bangkok and then went to Siem Reap (Ankor Wat - see Post #18) for 4 days, then back to Bangkok for 3 days. Both stays were at the Evergreen Laurel Hotel. I must admit to having spent way too many hours looking at hotels in Bangkok because I read that it had the least expensive 5-star hotels in the world. And it does. We had a suite with a large living room, nice kitchen, beautiful marble-tiled bathroom, and a large bedroom with king-sized bed and high thread-count sheets. Yes, I went a little crazy, but for $120/night, well worth it. The pool was also nice after a day of walking around. This was, by far, our nicest accomodation until we got to Mahahual, Mexico. Hotel photos:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/pVGKfWdRn7dDaXtL7
Bangkok City and Grand Palace photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TgyPEa5mcwpnM8Fe8
We wandered the city a lot. Yes, we got lost a few times but that is one of the ways you discover a new city. On our first day there, we had lunch with Pete, the headmaster at an international school in Bangkok, whom we met on a tour in Hanoi. He helped us figure out the BTS Skytrain - the overhead metro system. At his suggestion, we went to Icon Siam, the fanciest shopping mall we have ever seen. There is apparently some serious money in Bangkok. And at Peter's recommendation.we had an expensive drink at the top of the adjacent Millenium Hilton and took some photos of the Bangkok skyline.
One night we found a jazz club to celebrate Susan's birthday. And we spent a long morning at the Jim Thompson House - a museum/gallery in the residential compound built by the silk entrepreneur. His story is pretty interesting: a native of Delaware, he was in the the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the CIA) during WW2. At the end of the war he was stationed in Bangkok. While there, he discovered an enclave of Thai silk weavers in the city. He sent samples of their silk work to a New York City fashion design firm where they were a hit, and a thriving business was born. Thompson built, (re-built from existing teak houses hauled from neighboring villages), his 3 house compound right next to the weavers' enclave. The houses now comprise the museum and gallery. Mssr. Thompson dis-appeared in March, 1967, when he went for a walk while on vacation in Malaysia. Despite numerous investigations, no single theory of his demise has ever been proven. Jim Thompson may be gone but the company he founded is still a leader in the silk cloth business. His museum and gallery as well as the houses he built, are surprisingly interesting.
The Thai food was incredible every place we went, both restaurants and street food. We found a street vendor for breakfast where we dined for about $4 (for two) on noodle soup, which we both loved. We ended up talking to the vendor who set us up with a tuk-tuk driver. He made a big fuss about driving down the driver's price - which should have made me suspicious. He sent us to custom clothing maker where Susan convinced me to have a couple of shirts and pants made. It is what everyone does when they go to Bangkok. Then the tuk-tuk driver took us to the river so we could buy tickets for a longboat ride to the Floating Market. What we realized from talking to people later is that everyone was getting a cut from the proceeeds, starting with the street food vendor. It is the nature of business in the city, apparently. I should have figured something was up by how happy the tuk-tuk driver was despite his low fee.
We loved the Grand Palace Tour (see photos above). The palace is huge with so many ornate temples, buildings, and Buddhas. Having been in the building business for 30 years, I can only imagine the incredible manpower and skill it took to construct these marvels. The workmanship and detail is incredible -- and well maintained. You can do the tour by yourself but there is so much to know about what you are seeing that a guide is worth the price. For anyone contemplating a visit to Bangkok, skip the Floating Market and the boat ride. We understand it used to be interesting but is now solely for tourists.
CHIANG MAI
Chiang Mai is a large city (1.2 million) in northern Thailand. We went there to get to the Suan Sati retreat and stayed in the city for three days after the retreat because we had heard (and all the tour books say) that it is a good city for tourists. Our first night there we got a text on our Suan Sati Family Whatapp that there were a lot of folks from the retreat still in town and did anyone want to get together? Well, 20 of us found each other at the Night Market, inside the Old City gates. We took over a large table near several street food vendors and just basked in the sense of being together one last time while picking out various offerings from the vendors for dinner. It was adorable to be hanging out with these young folks and feeling a bit younger ourselves.
The next day we wandered the morning food market near our hotel. Again, amazing breakfast. Sorry, I cannot tell you what it was. I will have to look at Susan's photos again and see if I can identify any of it. But we loved the food everywhere in Thailand. In the afternoon, we found some temples in the Old City and walked around for a couple of hours just soaking it in. That night we found another jazz club and enjoyed some good music. The next day we went on our elephant tour and got up close with both the large elephants and a couple of young ones. We fed them and bathed them, trying to not get stepped on or rolled over upon while in the pond. It was a remarkable experience, although it seemed a little too commercial to be run by people who really cared about the elephants.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/B3tUVQdsYz7NgRVj7
That night we took a Thai cooking class which was a lot of fun. We learned that it did not seem that complex to get the Thai flavors and dishes we loved, like Pad Thai and massaman stew. We are determined to learn to cook some Thai dishes when we get home and are encouraged by the number of Asian markets near us. The only problem will be knowing what the hell we are buying when we walk the aisles. A learning process -- and we are ever hopeful. Photos from the cooking
class:
Finally, it was time to leave Thailand after 5 weeks. We loved that country: the beaches, the food, Bangkok, Suan Sati, the side trip to Ankor Wat -- so many amazing experiences. I will say that we were pretty much in the "tourist bubble" most of the time without much spontaneous interaction with the Thai people. Not being able to speak the language certainly hinders real communication. But all the Thai people we interacted with seemed to be upbeat, nice people. And there was not the sense of desperate poverty we have found elsewhere. The World Bank rates Thailand an "upper middle income country", and it felt that way. If Thailand were not so damn far away we would go back in a heartbeat. Mainly for the food and the beaches!
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