Bangkok Trip

I set off on the night bus on Friday for my purely touristic visit to Bangkok. The journey takes about 8 hours, with a break half way (sometime between midnight and 1am) for a toilet and food stop. Personally, I had no particular desire to eat at that hour, but the Thai people all converge on the food hall at the service area to eat a cooked meal. I did mange to get some sleep, but was pretty tired when we arrived at Bangkok's northern bus terminal around 4.30 in the morning. It is a huge bus terminal, and even at that time of the morning is buzzing with activity. I got a taxi to my hotel and went to bed for a few hours before setting off exploring.
I took a boat down the river to get to the Wat Pho, home to the famous Reclining Buddha.

 

The head end...

 

 

The middle...

 

 

The feet

 

Later I met up with Chandanie. She is pretty busy with her new job, so we were not able to spend as much time together as we would have liked, but it was still good to catch up.

On Sunday, I braved the crowds to visit the Grand Palace. It was a very hot and sunny day, and the place was teeming with tourists, of which of course I was one! It was quite difficult to move around and take things in, and impossible to get pictures without lots of people in. I happened to have arrived at the same time as a boat-load of sailors from somewhere-or-other, all smart and pristine in their white sailor outfits. So I decided to turn it into a game and not take pictures of anything unless there was at least one sailor posing in front of it. An easy task, as it happened!

I also visited a fascinating new exhibition about Thai textiles and clothing, which is a long-standing project of the queen herself. Apparently, back in 1941, the Thai government decreed that everyone should wear western style clothing. This meant that, when it came to the 1960 grand tour by the king and queen to the US and Europe, the Thai traditional dress had been completely lost. So the queen set about working with various designers to create a new style of Thai dress, based on the old traditional styles, but using modern tailoring. Her wardrobe for the tour included many of these new designs, and it seems they caused quite a sensation at the time.
Later, in the 1970s, she set up a project to encourage the rejuvenation of traditional silk manufacture in parts of Northern Thailand, and has continued to use the silk produced for the manufacture of her own clothes.
Another wonderful thing about the exhibition was that it was in an air-conditioned building, which was a blessed relief after wandering around the palace grounds in the Bangkok heat!

I did some shopping - mostly of the window variety - in the afternoon. I found Marks and Spencer, which is ridiculously expensive here, but it was fun to wander round and look at all the familiar products!
The night journey back was pretty uncomfortable and I didn't get much sleep. By the time I got back I was feeling not at all well, and spent much of Monday and Tuesday nursing a fever and an upset stomach. Opinion among my (Thai and Burmese) colleagues as to why I got ill is divided. Some say it is because of the weather, with it being so much hotter in Bangkok. Another view is that it is because I don't eat properly (my habit of eating sandwiches, fruit etc. for lunch is a source of constant amazement and disbelief for my colleagues, who eat three full cooked rice or noodle meals a day). However, I think my coordinator, who has a very wise head on his 22-year-old shoulders, probably hit the nail on the head when he said, "Well, you have been driving yourself since you arrived in Mae Sot." Good point!