Bangkok river and shopping mall

Longtail boats-river taxis

Bangkok has a major river, Chao Phraya, running through the heart of the city. We spent a leisurely morning touring Bangkok on a river ferry.  These are the boats the locals use as transportation to get around and they are cheap.  The river is alive-it's used to transport people and goods and it is clean and teeming with fish. 

Longtail boat

Prime waterfront property

Arun Wat

When we got off the ferry we headed to the Skytrain which took us to the shopping mall called MBK.  This place has five floors of shops.  The first three floors are mostly clothing and shoes, the fourth floor is electronics, and the fifth is furniture and a food court.  This is where the locals shop for bargains.

Today is our last day in Bangkok.  We've enjoyed our time here.  The city is exceptionally clean and we never felt unsafe.  We had to be wary of scams-not dangerous, just trying to part us from our money.

We had a tasty Thai lunch at the Blue Elephant Restaurant.  Yummy flavours artfully presented.  Then, we waddled  back to the Holiday Inn to pack up for the overnight train to Chaing Mai.  We're lurking about the hotel until 7 pm when we leave for the train station.

 The journey is 14 hours.  Al has the lower berth and Kim the upper.  We paid for first class so we hope we have a door and not a curtain. 





The green mat is a leaf, the pink flower is a lotus blossom,
and its petals have been folded over to look nice




Army of scooters leading off as soon as the
light turns green



Night Market and the Red Light District



Workers riding on top of their product

 

Bangkok is always busy with traffic, and it's not a walking-type of place.  People get around by local bus (not air-conditioned), or scooters (there's always an army of scooters at the traffic lights), Skytrain (above the street subway), cars, cabs and TukTuks.

Riding the Skytrain like a local

These look like a motorized, 3-wheel rickshaw.  The passengers sit on a padded bench at the back, under a canopy while the driver is up front, driving what looks like a motorcycle.  They are cheap, and scary.  The drivers zip all over in them, cutting off traffic at will.  We've taken our chances a few times (both day and night) by using a TukTuk to get around. 

TukTuk

Family out for a ride

It is necessary to haggle with the driver since they don't have meters in the TukTuk.  We feel like pros and Al is quite good at the process.  We approach the driver, who asks, "You need TukTuk?"  Al tells him where we're going and asks, "How much?"  Invariably, the answer is 100 baht (which converts to $3.40).  Al haggles and we pay 40 baht ($1.36).  Cheap-as long as we live through the ride.

Doing some intense business



Up the street from our hotel, just far enough away to need a TukTuk, is the night market.  It opens at 6 pm and runs well past midnight.  This place is a blast!  We've gone twice now.  It's hot and crowded and filled with open stalls selling clothing, shoes, jewelry (Tiffany, Pandora, tons of knock-off watches), sunglasses, purses, and all kinds of other junk.  There are street food vendors, cooking unrecognizable strips of meat.  We haven't eaten any of that-people tell us the food is safe but we prefer to leave that alone. 

The Night Market is bordered by "night clubs" on two sides.  This is the red light district, and the sex trade is thriving here (perhaps the city name says it all!)  We've seen many older, white men with young Thai women (and with young Thai men, too).

Night club workers

A "night club"





It has been very warm here, and very humid.  Perfect weather for a cold beer.  Our hotel room is equipped with a mini bar fridge which is fully stocked, and outrageously expensive.  There is a small grocery store about 3 blocks away and one sultry afternoon we walked down there to buy a six-pack of Singha beer (the Thai beer). We knew we could make room for it in our mini fridge.  In the store we made our selection and took it to the cashier.  She refused to ring in our purchase.  Imagine our confusion.  Finally we understood-they don't sell beer between 2 pm and 5 pm.  It was 2:30.  We looked at each other in absolute disbelief.  Here we had in our hot (literally) hands a six-pack, cold and beaded with sweat, and we couldn't buy it for another 2.5 hours.  This was even worse than being in a dry county in Texas.  At least there they didn't have any beer.  Here, they had it and we couldn't get it.  We put it back, walked back to the hotel and sulked by the pool, where we had our beer delivered to us by the cabana boy.  At 5 o'clock we trudged back to the store to buy the six-pack. 

Night ride in a TukTuk

Bangkok

Bangkok is a huge, bustling, vibrant city of 10 million people.  95% of the population is Buddhist, 4% are Hindu, and the last 1% are everything else.  Every Buddhist man, upon turning 20 years old, must live with the Monks for 3 months.  He can't get married until he fulfills this requirement.

Buddhist Monks at the Wat

The city has over 400 Buddhist temples, which house Buddha is various positions.  We've seen the two most famous statues of him- the Reclining Buddha and the Solid Gold Buddha (he sits cross-legged).

The Wat (Temple) Tour 

We signed up for, and paid for this tour at the airport tourism desk.  It was a good price-$17.50 CDN for a our private tour in a car with a driver and a guide.  The guide, Lek, knew his history and he was interesting. 

Solid Gold Buddha

The first stop was at Wat Trimit, the Temple of the solid gold Buddha.  This guy weighs 5 1/2 tons of gold.  In order to protect him during WWI he was covered in concrete.  He was moved after WWII and during the move the concrete cracked, revealing the gold underneath.  When all the concrete was removed the Thai people realized they had a real prize so they installed him at this temple.

Rows of Buddha statues



Worshippers rub small squares of gold leaf on these
Buddhas for good fortune



Next we saw Wat Po, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha.  He is huge.  As we looked at him we became aware of an unusual, constant pinging noise.  We couldn't figure out what it was.  It sounded like metallic rain.  We continued walking around Buddha and saw people dropping single coins into a long row of bowls-the source of the pinging sound.  It was at this temple where a western woman (white) had her wallet picked from her purse right in front of us.  She realized what happened just after the woman did it and confronted the thief, who just walked away.

Reclining Buddha

Then, the hidden agenda surfaced.  The reason that we got such a great deal on this tour was because now we were taken to the jewelry factory.  This factory tour was just like every other factory tour we have ever been on in Europe.  It starts with a very brief explanation of how the product is made, and then we are ushered in to the showroom, where an army of sales agents is oh, so eager to assist us in saving money.  Fortunately, we are very good at smiling and saying, "No thank you."
We were out of that shop in record time, only to find ourselves being spirited to the Thai Tailor Shop next.  Here, smiling Thai men would make custom made suits, shirts or slacks out of whatever fabric we wanted.  Three silk shirts, custom made would be $25 CDN each.  Seems like a good price but we have heard that the quality is often poor.  You still get what you pay for.  We nodded, said no and left.
We were back in the car but not yet driven back to our hotel-we found ourselves at a tour company.  Here, they were very happy to help us find more things to do in Thailand.  After assuring the representative that we didn't need hotel, airline, train or tour information (and booking) we were finally finished and in the backseat of the car. 

We asked the driver to take us to the Weekend Market instead of the hotel and he did so.
The tour itself was good, and the price was reasonable.  We were lucky we know how to say no.

A shoe stall at the market.  Shoes cost 100 baht-$3.40 CDN

We spent some time weaving our way through the stalls of goods and the throngs (hordes) of people. This market is vast and popular; way more locals than tourists here.  It was past lunch and were were way beyond peckish.  We had to eat, so we sourced out where the locals were eating.  This is an outdoor market and the food area was clean-it was just not what you expect in North America.  It is similar to a mall food court.  Around the perimeter were very basic cooking stalls, with the specific food the stall prepared.  In the middle of the area were plastic tables and chairs.  We looked at each stall's picture menu and pointed to what we wanted.  Two meals cost us $3.20.  We suffered no ill effects from eating street food. 

Al-dripping with sweat and eating his Thai meal

This day was the hottest day we have ever experienced.  We were walking sweat drips and we needed to jump into the pool back at the hotel.  Since this market was quite a distance from the hotel we knew that a cab ride would take more than a hour (the cab would get stuck in traffic.)  We found our way to the Skytrain, Bangkok's equivalent of a subway but this is above the road.  For under $3 we got back to the hotel in less than 30 minutes.  What a deal. 

We are really having a good time here.  Bangkok is an incredibly busy city, yet it is super clean.  The people are friendly.  As long as tourists know that the people here are out to make some money and all you have to do is be polite when you say, "No thanks" they leave you alone.

Hong Kong to Bangkok

The Hong Kong culture is very considerate of others-guess they have to be since there are so many of them.  In the public toilets there are signs encouraging users to keep the area clean.  There are two toilet attendants keeping the place spotless.  In one public washroom there was an attendant who pointed to the available stall. 
If you're sick here you wear a surgical mask so you won't spread your germs to others.  In one of the big shopping centres the handrail on the escalator is continuously disinfected as it rotates.

Our flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok was with Air Asia-the discount airline.  It was uneventful, and, being discount, provided nothing except the flight. 

The airport in Bangkok was overwhelming, and we're seasoned travellers.  It took us a very long time to get through immigration and by the time we got to the luggage carousel, our bags were two of the last few dizzy bags still left circling around.  We rescued them and headed for the taxi stand.
We were armed with the prior knowledge that all taxi drivers in Thailand are out to rip off tourists so we were ready.  Our first encounter was with a man who asked us if we needed a taxi-and we weren't even out of the building yet.  Oh, we knew he was going to scam us so we told him, "Nope."  We breathed a sigh of relief that we made it past that challenge and continued on.
Next, we entered the big, open area within the airport just before going outside.  We saw a booth, staffed by professional people wearing uniforms similar to those worn by flight attendants.  A few uniformed people were out in front of the booth and one of them approached us.  She was very polite and professional and she asked us if we wanted a metered taxi.  We said we did so she directed us to the booth.  There, the woman told us what to pay and where to get the cab. We thought this booth was a state-run tourism booth so when the woman told us about tours in Bangkok and we signed up for one we thought we bought a legitimate tour.  Hmm.  Turns out the booth was not state-run and everyone here has a hidden agenda.  More about this tour later.

We made our way to the taxi stand.  We knew taxi drivers pulled a scam on riders.  The cabbies drove without turning on their meter and then stated a ridiculously high price when you got to your destination.  We knew we had to make sure he turned on his meter.  We thought all we had to do was to ask him and he would comply.  We were so wrong.



Cabs are the colourful pink, yellow, green and blue cars

 Sure enough, our cabbie began to drive away from the airport unmetered.  We asked him to turn it on and he pretended not to understand English.  We asked again.  Nothing.  We started to point and push.  Still nothing.  Then, in the back seat, we said to each other, "Well, we'll pay him 200 baht because that's what the hotel guy said the cost was."  Wow, did that cabbie ever move fast to turn on the meter.  Guess he understood that English.  We almost high-fived each other in the back seat-another scam averted.  By the way, the cost of the cab ride cost us 400 baht-$13.36 CDN.
We're staying at the Holiday Inn and it is a beauty.

Poolside

Street view of hotel

Crowne Plaza Hotel, 24th Floor, Hong Kong--FIRE!!!

We had a vague idea how to get from the airport to the hotel.  We figured we would hail a cab and it would drive us.  Ha-even better.  We asked a tourist board official at a desk in the arrivals hall and were directed to a transportation desk where we found a hotel shuttle.  We hopped on and in less than 2 hours (holy cow there was traffic!) we covered the 40 km to the hotel. If we had been in a cab we would have thought the cabbie was ripping us off.  It seemed like we went all over the place to run up the meter.

Our hotel is the one in the middle, with what looks like a balcony
near the top.

Our first impression of this hotel was jaw-dropping amazement-so lavish.  At check in we upgraded to include breakfast, high tea and happy hour.  We have taken total advantage of all of those amenities.  The breakfast buffet is huge, serving western and eastern foods.  Yum.  High tea includes tiny sandwiches and cakes and cookies and happy hour has a full bar and hot food.  

28th floor pool with a clear wall overlooking the city.

That's the shower.  We found out after we used it that there
was a sliding door for privacy.

Our room is elegant, and the view is great.  However, when the fire alarm went off just past midnight, right after we fell asleep, that 24th floor isn't so spectacular.  We jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, grabbed the essentials (passport, money, kindle) and quickly walked down 24 floors.  Yup, got to the bottom.  Saw the fire department.  A hotel staff member told us it was a false alarm.  Very unsettling.  

Today is May 5th and it is really the only full day we have to enjoy the city.  We took a Gray Line tour this morning.  It took us to a temple (kind of like all the tours in European cities go to cathedrals).  There was a choking cloud of incense inside.  Here, worshippers light incense, not candles. 

Incense cones hanging from the ceiling.

Inside the temple.

Next, we took a boat ride in a sampan in Hong Kong harbour.  Also know as Victoria harbour, it is one of the largest port cities in the world.

Then we rode a cog railcar up to the highest peak. Hong Kong is very mountainous.

Unusual architecture.

Lastly, we visited Stanley Market-lots of small stalls and interesting goods for sale.
Back at the hotel we enjoyed high tea, followed by happy hour.  Fortified again we headed out to Times Square, a big shopping mall close to our hotel.  There were 9 floors of shops.  Here, all buildings are narrow, but high.  Land is at a premium so they use up airspace.
Interesting tidbits of information we picked up:
-Only 4 % of Hong Kongers (that's what you call them) own a car
-Hong Kong has torrential rainfall where they can get 12 inches of rain in one hour
-In order to bind feet, the toes were broken and bent backwards (eeuw)
-Always talk to the hotel concierge because they have great tips for tourists
We fly to Bangkok May 6th.   

Toronto to Hong Kong

May 3-Good thing we set the alarm because at 5 am we were still snoring away.  Just past 6 am, we left Stratford, with Brad and Court driving us to Pearson for our 10 am flight.  Traffic was light and we arrived at the airport at 7:35, in plenty of time.  Check in and airport security were swift and we were chilling in the departure lounge by 8 am.

 We boarded on time and, even more importantly, we took off on time.

Around noon we were served our lunch (choice of chicken or pork), and then the lights in the cabin were turned down low.  It was just too hard to sleep.  We watched movies;  The King's Speech, The Tourist, Little Fockers, Burlesque, True Grit, even the 1987 Canada vs Russia classic hockey game.  We hope they have new movies for the return flight. 

Around 6 pm we were handed chopsicks.  The flight attendants handed out cup of noodles and bunwhiches so we slurped up our noodles with our chopsticks just like everyone else on the flight.  We'll get better at it, or else it's our new weight loss method. 

For the final meal the options were an omlette or congee.  Congee was described as rice gruel.  One of us thought even that sounded better than egg. 
Our flight pattern was unusual.  From Toronto we flew north, around the east side of Hudson Bay.  We didn't turn west until we were well up into the Arctic Ocean.  Then we flew well north of Russia, only turning south once we could fly directly south to Hong Kong. 

Flight stats:
altitude-31500 ft
outside temperature--71 degrees F
total distance-8103 miles
time-15 1/4 hours



We didn't have to change our watches because Hong Kong is 12 ahead of Stratford.  We landed at 1:15-that was am in Stratford and pm in Hong Kong.  Because we crossed the International Date Line, we are now one day ahead.

Street view of Hong Kong on our way to the hotel

Home-but packed and ready for Asia

We were blown back to Stratford by the tornado that hit St. Louis on Good Friday.  On the Thursday night we were on the road, looking for a place to pull off for the night.  We found a WalMart in St. Louis and it became the Booker campsite.  The next morning (Good Friday), the weather wasn't good. It was rainy and just dismal.  We decided not to hang around, but to get on the road and just drive through the rain.  Good thing.  We heard about the tornado that ripped through St. Louis that afternoon, taking out a suburb and part of the airport.

We've spent this week having fun with Lily and Luke, and making sure they remember who we are. 

Trip Recap

Distance travelled: 20560 km
Furthest point from home:  San Diego, at the border toTijuana, Mexico
Most northern extent of travels:  Portland, Oregon
Most western extent of travels:  San Francisco, California
Highest point:  Sequoia National Park-over 9000 ft in elevation.  Height of van roof-8 ft 3in (found this out when we tried to go into an underground parking lot that said the height of the ceiling was 8 ft 2in.  Part of our roof vent is still attached to that ceiling sign.) 
Lowest point:  Badwater Basin in Death Valley, California (282 ft below sea level).  Badwater Basin is also   the hottest and driest spot in North America.  It was cold and it rained the day we were there.
Hottest day-98.8 F.  Hottest point in North America that day.
Coldest day:  Camping in the mountains in Death Valley.  Woke up to snow.  Other campers were in tents, freezing.
Scariest moment:  Driving on the Interstate in California, we experienced a near miss-miss head-on.  We watched a car enter the freeway from an exit ramp.  This car came up the off ramp, directly in front of the car which was exiting the freeway in front of us.  Then, this wayward driver realized that he was going the wrong way so he did a U-turn on the freeway in front of 3 lines of traffic and scooted back down the off ramp.  
Special moments:  first view of The Grand Canyon; hot air balloon ride in Sedona; walking into Mexico; beachcombing on the Pacific; biking across the Golden Gate Bridge; buying shrimp off the shrimp boats and having a shrimp boil; swimming in the Rio Grande.

Next
We're packed and ready for our flight to Hong Kong.  We leave Toronto at 10 am on May3-the flight is 15.25 hours long.  We land in Hong Kong at 1:15 pm their time on May 4. 
We're spending 6 weeks touring Asia, and we have about 2 weeks of that planned out.  For the remaining 4 weeks we're going to bump around Southeast Asia, find interesting places to stay and do things as we find them. 
Here's what we have so far:
Hong Kong-2 days.  Fly to Bangkok.
Bangkok-4 days.  Take the overnight train north to Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai-8 days.  Attend a Thai cooking class, visit the elephant camp.  Return south on the train to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Kuala Lumpur-4-5 days.  This is shopping heaven.  We might spend more time here. Al might not realize this.
From Kuala Lumpur we want to go to Bali, Indonesia and then Penang, Maylasia, and back to Thailand to the smaller, out of the way sights.  Perhaps then to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  Who knows? 
Our flight home lands in Toronto, at 6:05 pm on June 16th.

We'll be updating the blog along the way.  All of Asia is very technologically advanced so we'll have internet access.  One of our hotels even gives guests cell phones to use to make local calls.  Sweet!
A&K