Waiting to head to Suvarnabhumi airport here at 3:33 AM, I think about really early mornings. For the past few days we’ve been moving at O Dark-30, and the shock of being awake is always a challenge. Still, we’re traveling across the globe, and time is relative.
For the past 2 (has it been 2?) days, we’ve been in Hong Kong and now Bangkok, finding ways to meet and engage.
In Hong Kong, we “Ubered” to the Ladies Night Market despite a 14:45 hr flight. Our drivers Chit and Wing Kin offered information about the night market (Mong Kok) and details about their lives in Hong Kong and Lantau. Their specific information made our night better!
Our group wandered the stalls, selecting various treasures and eating some tasty street food! As midnight rolled around, we went back to the hotel ( Regala Skycity) and immediately crashed.
Our 9:00 AM flight to Bangkok was uneventful, and we landed in the heat of the city. The Thai airport is beautiful and busy. The sights, sounds, smells, and sheer number of people are overwhelming with little sleep. Still, we pushed through, checked into the Great Residence Hotel and headed into the city.
The drive to the Chao Phraya river was eventful as Sanong taught us some Thai. He offered helpful information and after an hour in traffic we headed to the Golden Palace…as we walked to the entrance it, literally, closed in front of us. The gate was locked and we stood more than a little dumbfounded.
The temple complex sometimes closes unannounced, and that happened to us!
No worries, of course! We shifted gears and visited Wat Pho and the reclining Buddha.
Wat Pho is a quiet respite from the bustle of life. Many fewer people shuffled through the grounds as we walked into the many temples representign vrious aspects of historical Buddhism and individual buddhas in Thailand. In one building in particular, about 50 gold statues repesented the enlightenened teachers, all with very difference expressions on their faces from stern to laughing.
Throughout the complex, stupas representing different eras of contruction filled open plazas and were covered in small tiles of flowers and colorful designs.
At Wat Pho, the the focus for many is the reclining Buddha. This representation of the Buddha is just before he died and statue is massive. As you take your shoes off at the entrance, a single file line of folks shuffle through the hall. The shock of this process was that they allowed photography in the space. It’s rare in sacred places in Asia to be able to photograph in a shrine room and I was intially taken by surprise…then, I saw people spending time looking and photographing, and it felt OK. So I snapped away.
Our group was scattered around the Wat, and we eventually came back together to make our way by ferry across the river to Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn. The heat was getting to us, and lack of sleep, food, and heat crowded our brains. We managed to walk to the ferry at Tha Tien launch.
Crossing the busy Chao Phraya is an adventure. Boats of various types are mototring up and down the river….our small ferry just had one job: cross the river. We managed it between massive boats and landed in just a few minutes at the other side.
Wat Arun is a huge stupa, covered in ceramic tiles from top to bottom. The current temple was expanded in the 19th century (originally constructed abou 400 years ago), and the size of the structure is hard to describe. Families and individuals were phtographing themselves in traditional dress and we watched the hundred of folks looking for the best spot to take a picture.
The weather was getting to us and we found our driver, Sanong, and headed back to our hotel, about 31 km away. Most of us crashed hard after a quick bite to eat, and prepared for our 3:45AM trip back to Suvarnabhumi Airport and our early AM flight to Bhutan!
More to come from students on the next post!
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