Flying Air Asia from Penang to Bangkok (Air Asia is a budget airline with legroom allowances appropriate only for adults 5’ 1” or smaller) we arrived in Bangkok and made our way to our AirBnB apartment on Petchubury Road via Grab Car. We’re on the 27th foor with a nice view towards downtown.
We’ve been joined by our good friends, Stacy Harmon and Tenney Jensen for this part of the trip. We’ve eaten in some touristy restaurant with tourist pricing, and in food courts where locals eat with meals for $1.25 , and at price points in between. Wherever we find food that looks good and reasonably safe to eat, we give it a try.
We took a water taxi and a tuk tuk to get to Wat Pho, a large Buddhist temple complex in the old part of Bangkok. Beautiful buildings and hundreds of buddha statues including a 150 foot long reclining Buddha housed in it’s own building. Note that Chinese tourism has increased dramatically in the past few years, which puts a strain on tourist destinations in Thailand.
We also spent time at the Train Night Market Ratchada. We ate satay, pineapple, some mini pancakes with fillings, mango and sticky rice and Roti with bananas and chocolate. We passed on the fried grubs and grasshoppers. Noisy, crowded, with narrow passages between long rows of food vendor stalls, probably 150 or so all together. There are also another 300+ stalls selling clothing, phone accessories, painting nails, tattoos, knock-off brand name bags and wallets etc. It was fun to eat our way through, but nice to get away from the noise and crowds after shuffling through the place for an evening.
We visited the Jim Thompson house, built after WWII by a famous American who revitalized the Thai silk industry in the 50’s and 60’s. His constructed his house here in Bangkok by bringing in six old traditional Thai houses and connecting them to form one larger house. No pictures allowed in the house, so we have some from the grounds. He was a very inventive businessman and architect with a nice collection of regional art. He disappeared mysteriously while on holiday in Malaysia in 1967. The mystery has never been solved.
We visited the grounds of the Grand Palace (along with several thousand Chinese). This is an amazing amount of hand-applied ornate tiles, mirrors, carvings etc. It was the official residence of the King of Bangkok until 1925, and is still used for ceremonial occasions. We managed to take some nice pictures despite the crowds.
Next up, a bike tour tomorrow.
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