One Night in Bangkok

Place: Bangkok, Thailand

Language: Thai
Hello: Sàwàtdii (khráp/khâ) If you are male, you add khráp to the end to show respect. If you are female, you add khâ. (sa wa dee crap/sa wa dee kah)
Thank you: Khàwp khun (khráp/khâ) (ka pun crap/ka pun kah)

Yes, we actually spent one night in Bangkok like the song goes. And if Marc sings or hums that song one more time, I'm going to send him back to Bangkok with a one-way ticket. Honestly, how many times can one sing the chorus in one day?!!??!??!!

We also spent one whirlwind day trying to the most of our time in this crazy city. Luckily, I had studied the Lonely Planet guide thoroughly before getting there because after visiting, I have decided to rename Bangkok "The City of 1,000 Scams." If I hadn't read it myself, I wouldn't have believed it.

Lonely Planet warns:

Just Say No: Bangkok Scams. Be wary of smartly dressed men who approach you asking where you're from and where you're going. These upmarket con artists have the gift of the gab, but any promises they make will cost you money sooner or later. There are 4 typical schemes:

1 - Closed today. Ignore any "friendly" local who tells you that an attraction is closed for a Buddhist holiday or for cleaning. These are set-ups for trips to a bogus gem sale.

As soon as we exited our taxi at the Grand Palace, it took about 10 seconds for us to be approached by one of these guys. "It is Big Buddha Birthday today," he said. "The Grand Palace is closed and only locals can go to pray until noon, then it will reopen to the public." REALLY? Mmmmmhmmmm....

We got the SAME thing by another scam artist upon exiting the Grand Palace and I kept saying "No it's not, Buddha's Birthday is in May" until he left us alone (it really is, look it up). You can't even stop for 2 minutes to consult your map before you are accosted by these vultures!

2 - Tuk-tuk rides for 10B (1 Thai Baht = $0.03 USD, so about $0.30 USD). Say goodbye to your day's itinerary if you climb aboard this ubiquitous scam. These alleged "tours" bypass all the sights and instead cruise to all the fly-by-night gem and tailor shops that pay commissions.

Our "helpful" new friend then tried to get us to take this 10B tuk-tuk ride until the Grand Palace opened at noon. Um, yea, OK, like I'm going ANYWHERE with you buddy.

3 - Flat-Fare taxi ride. Flatly refuse any driver who quotes a flat fare (usually between 100B and 150B for in-town destinations), which will be 3 times more expensive than the meter rate. Sometimes walking beyond the tourist area will help in finding an honest driver.

This seemed simple enough. If they offered a flat fare, we would refuse and ask the driver to turn on the meter. Easier said than done. Around the main tourist sites, the taxi cab drivers would not accept our ride and would just drive off. Trying to get to the Chatuchak Market (see below), we hailed no less than 5 taxis who each tried to get us to ride for a flat rate of 300B-400B. We refused and walked a few blocks away until we got an honest driver and paid about 100B for the 45 minute ride.

4 - Tourist buses to the south. On the long journey south, pickpockets have hours to comb through your bags, breaking into (and later re-sealing) locked bags, searching through hiding places and stealing credit cards, electronics and even toiletries. One traveller reported that his stolen credit card was used to pay for the trip's petrol. How generous.

Thankfully, we did not take any buses so we didn't have this problem but if we ever travel from Bangkok to the Andaman Coast, we'll be prepared.

The thing that really gets me, though, is the audacity of the scammers. There are entire sections in guidebooks warning about them and yet, they continue to perform the same scam day after day. I mean, COME ON! The gig is up guys! I guess that some people really do fall for it or else they wouldn't keep doing it. But the real question is can you really make a living like that? I imagine cocktail parties in Bangkok going something like this:

• So, what do you do?
• I do the 10B tuk-tuk ride scam.
• Oh really? Me too! Where do you get your victims?
• The south-side of the Grand Palace.
• Oh, I used to do the Grand Palace. Now, I get mine on the north-side of the Reclining Buddha, I found better luck there. You should try it sometime...

After being accosted by the "friendly" local, we made it into the Grand Palace and MAN is it grand!

Is it me or do each of those guards look like Tiger Woods? Marc was making fun of me, because everywhere I turned, I saw Tiger. He is part-Thai after all.

The Grand Palace is a huge compound of buildings with beautifully ornate Thai roofs. The Palace grounds used to be used by the royal family but the new king decided he needed some new digs, preferably without as many tourists around, and therefore had a new palace built elsewhere in the city. The Grand Palace now, although heavily guarded, is only used for ceremonial pomp and circumstance and the scenery for many tourists' pictures.

Also within the walls of the Grand Palace is Wat Phra Kaew (Wat means Temple in Thai as you will find out soon enough). The temple buildings are even more ornate with beautiful gilded facades and intricate tile work. The 3 main spires that you can see in the following photo represent Sri Lanka, Thailand and Cambodia, and just to the right is another big building representing a Chinese temple:

Once inside, we were just in awe at the intricacy of the buildings' facades. There is even a not-so-miniature replica of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. On the Thai chedi (spire), I took this close-up to show you just how much gilded artwork and how many tiny little pieces of mirrored tile go into one small section of the chedi. These little pieces of tiles cover the entire building!

How would you like to be the guy that crazy-glued each of those little tiles on the building? Or even worse, checks the building for missing pieces?

Guarding the temple buildings are these big, mean, scary looking guards.

I'd be scared if I was a demon trying to get in and saw those 30 foot guards!
Hmmm, where in the world is Sabrina?

The main temple in the Wat Phra Kaew is home of the Emerald Buddha. You would think with such a name, he would be made of emerald, but he's not. He's actually make of jasper quartz and nephrite jade. Booooooo... I was hoping for a huge chunk of emerald. Also, he was a lot smaller than I thought he was going to be. Here's a few things I learned at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha that I can share since we weren't allowed to take pictures of the disappointingly small deity (although you can see some illegally taken pictures here http://reviews.ebay.com/The-Emerald-Buddha_W0QQugidZ10000000004604879):

• The Emerald Buddha gets dressed up all year long. He has 3 outfits made of gold and changed for the different seasons, one for hot season, one for the rainy season and one for the cool season. When we went, he was wearing the rainy season outfit. The King of Thailand gets to change the Emerald Buddha's clothing.
• All other Buddhas are also outfitted with the same outfit and there are a lot of Buddha in Thailand so there must be a lot of clothing getting changed.
• You have to Dress to Impress the Big Guy. In order to be allowed entrance into any temple, but especially the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, you must be wearing long pants (not capris), a shirt that cover your shoulders and closed-toed shoes. I read my guidebook and therefore, we were sweating up a storm in our jeans, t-shirts and shoes. However, some other people didn't read so closely (I bet they also got scammed) and they had to rent clothes at the gate before they were allowed in. Women got to wear long sarongs with silly prints on them while the men were wearing big baggy chef pants with similar silly prints. I wish they would let up on this policy. I mean, Catholics just say you have to have your shoulders covered. We went in OCTOBER and it was 95 degrees, can you imagine in the dead middle of summer? I bet people die of heat stroke!
• You can't wear your closed-toed shoes in the temple (so what's the point of wearing them in?). You must take your shoes off before you enter and put them somewhere on a really long shoe rack among everyone else's stinky shoes. Marc suggested I go up to the woman attendant and tell her I was looking for a size 6 1/2. Funny boy, that made me forgive him for the first 10 renditions of One Night in Bangkok.
• You can't point your feet at the Buddha. So, when entering, you must take care to point your feet elsewhere and since there are no seats in the temple, you must kneel with your feet tucked under you or to the side.

Man, that's a LOT of rules! Every single temple in Thailand is like that! There also all kinds of other social rules you must obey. Like, as a woman, I can't touch a monk or his belongings (not that I'd want to) and to avoid an accidental brushing, I must not sit next to a monk if on a bus and let them pass first on a crowded street. I was paying acute attention to this as there are many monks walking around the temples. I even saw a woman get up from her seat on a water ferry and move to the other side of the boat when a monk got on.

Thai people do a bow like the Japanese called a wai, they put their hands together as in prayer and bow a little bit upon greeting you and saying goodbye or performing some service to you. You can return a wai to an adult but not to children or servers.

The head is considered the highest part of the body, so you must never touch a Thai on the head or ruffle their hair. Conversely, the feet are considered the lowest part of the body and you should never step over them if they are lying on the floor, stepping around them or asking them to move instead.

When handing something to someone, like money, you must use your right hand and place your left hand on your elbow as a sign of good manners.

If eating at someone's house, you must never eat everything off your plate or else it looks like you are still hungry. Instead, you should over-serve yourself and leave a little bit of food on your plate.

Thailand was definitely a cultural experience and I really enjoyed learning about all their customs even if I did have to think carefully about everything I did and I lost 10 pounds in sweat visiting 3 temples in 95 degree weather.

Next up, we took a tuk-tuk ride to the Temple of the Reclining Buddha (or Wat Pho). A tuk-tuk is a colorful little motorized rickshaw, and they aren't just for tourists. Locals use tuk-tuks for riding short distances, although most locals don't take silly pictures like this:

Yup, we're a couple of dorks. The guy in the front is our funny tuk-tuk driver. Approximately 3 minutes later, we arrived at our destination. The Reclining Buddha is the largest reclining Buddha in the world; it is 138 feet long and 45 feet tall. We could hardly get the whole thing in the picture:

I was going to do something funny like take a picture with me sticking my finger in the air as if I was picking the Buddha's nose, but #1 - it's too tall, and #2 - Marc convinced me not to. Dang Thai temple rules!

Finally, we visited our last temple, Wat Arun, which looks like a gigantic missile. In order to get there, we had to take a water taxi across the Chao Phraya River which cost us a whopping 12 cents (US). In fact, on our way back, we didn't have enough change and the lady who was taking our money couldn't make change for us, so she let me go on it for free - WOAH, big spender! Marc took this great shot of some kids playing in the Chao Phraya from the water taxi:

We watched these kids jump in the murky brown possibly dengue-fever-ridden water about a half dozen times. I was shocked that anyone would let their kids do this but when I got back, my godmother (who lived in Thailand for 11 years) told me that the locals do everything in the Chao Phraya, even brush their teeth! Ugh!

Wat Arun isn't much to write home about:

It doesn't have any Buddhas in it, but from the top of the monument, you can get some really great views of the city, including the Grand Palace across the river. While there I was able to do the stick shaky fortune telling thing and got the following fortune #10 and no, I'm not making this up [editor's notes in brackets]:

"Like being dumb [what?]. Difficult to express yourself clearly [Do they know I'm an attorney?]. Feeling uncertain [about what exactly?]. Forthcoming child shall be a baby girl [what if I had been a male and got this fortune?]. Lost items could never be recovered [isn't that why they are lost?]. Illnes condition unfavorable [I'm feeling fine thanks, except for the queasy feeling I get when I read a typo like Illnes, get a dictionary!]. Discovering a mate who could become a satisfactory match [does the engagement ring give it away?]. No lucks [then why am I happy, engaged and living in a cool city where I get to travel a lot?]. Should be careful [thanks mom]."

Done with our temple hopping for the day, we quickly peeled off our respective jeans and changed into shorts to go to the Chatuchak Market. Lonely Planet describes the market as follows: "This gigantic market is the daddy of all Thai markets, with thousands of vendors selling everything from live rabbits to hill-tribe handicrafts to potted plants, crockery and hardware. This is easily the best place in Bangkok to buy handicrafts, clothes and other impulse buys. Good souvenirs that you can find here include silver hill-tribe jewellery, traditional Thai clothing, Thai and Lao silk, opium pipes, wooden chopsticks, stainless steel Thai cutlery, lacquerware, bamboo placemats, wooden bowls and cases, reproduction celadon, bronzeware, woodcarvings, baskets and fake brand-name jeans... Phew! Around 200,000 people mob the market every Saturday and Sunday." Nope, that's not a typo - 200,000 people! They are not exaggerating, that place is a zoo, literally and figuratively. Folks, there is a section where you can buy pets and not just cats, dogs, birds, reptiles, and hamsters, you can even take home your own pet squirrel:

It took me 5 minutes to convince Marc we couldn't take a squirrel across international borders. We almost got lost inside the 30 acres of the stalls several times but managed to find a map and used Marc's trusty compass to get around. By the time we got there, we only had about 2 hours of shopping before all the stalls started closing, but we did do some damage, buying Christmas presents, Thai masks and my personal favorite, a wooden elephant stool we named Bert:

He is actually carved out of a tree trunk if you can believe that. We are currently using him as a plant stand in the window. I cannot tell you how insanely cheap most things in that market are, and nice stuff made of real wood and hard-carved not mass-produced schlock. Bert set us back a little less than $20 (US) and he is big! About 1 foot in diameter and a foot tall, he weighs 20 pounds easy, just ask Marc who had to carry him back on his head to the hotel and onto the plane. The beautiful exotic items in this huge market are the sorts of things you see at Pier One Imports or Cost Plus World Market for 3-4 times what they cost at Chatuchak. I'm sure that the buyers for those places actually go to this market to buy things in bulk and jack up the prices in the US. It's going to make me think twice about buying things in those stores now that I know how cheap they are in Thailand!

If I were more of an entrepeneur, I would find a way to import these items into the US and have my own housewares stuff. Those Buckhead Bettys would go nuts over some of the most exotic items, knowing that Suzy down the street will be jealous and paying a pretty penny for their one-of-a-kind knick-knacks. In fact, while we were haggling over Bert, 2 women and a man were purchasing 30 wooden elephant stools to take home to Iran and sell in their store. Marc started talking to them and they admitted they could make 70% profit on the wholesale price they were purchasing the stools for. Heck, in the US, I'd bet you could get 150% over wholesale!

As for Bert, I have no idea how we are getting him to the US, but we'll find a way.