Well folks, today has been... interesting! And eventful! However, the peoples we were supposed to meeting at various times of the day all kinda bailed on us (New Year's is a big holiday here), so we were free to enjoy the cultural offerings of Bangkok. And we all did so, in many different ways. The day started with us all together, visiting the former home, now museum of an American architect who settled in Thailand in the first half of the 20th century, building a more-or-less traditional Thai style house, full of art and beautiful gardens. He disappeared in 1967 at the age of 61 (apparently a bad age for 'horses' according to area astrology), but his house really was gorgeous. Interesting note: there's a raised component of the wall that you have to step over wherever there are doors: 1 to keep babies from crawling off, 2 to stabalize the house of stilts, 3 it stops ghosts. There was even some Burmese art there, such as the Nats (local spirits). His name was Jim Thompson, I think, but I could be wrong.
From there, we all decided to go to Chinatown/Little India. However, not all of us took the same means of transportation. A group of about 8 of us (myself, Amanda, Alexis, Shoshoanna, Lauren, Timmy, Meghan, and Suzy) got a couple of tuk tuks to take us. Now a tuk tuk is like a motorcycle taxi thing. Cheap, but potentially unstable. The others (Thomas, Alex, Christy, Fan, Jon, Ben, Brianna...) decided to walk; on the map it didn't look that far. Well, on our tuk tuks, we realized just how far it was. Turns out the walkers ended up walking at least 5 miles today just trying to get to Little India! In this heat! Oy! They earned their dinner tonight!
Us tuk tuk-ers ended up in a couple groups, checking out the eats and shops, trying to learn (or to teach others how) to haggle prices, exploring the flower market, and enjoying the street vendors. Everyone was back at lovely Suk 11 by about 6PM (how I really don't know given the amount of things we all did today). Then by a brilliant act of finesse, Alexis got us reservations at a Crepe restaurant this evening, where we enjoyed our well-earned meals (some more than others!). Christie even got her's as flambe!
By the end of the evening, it was getting late and some of us were discussing foot massages. There are a lot offered here, so it isn't hard to shop around. Tomorrow we'll be going to a wat (Buddhist temple complex), possibly the Grand Palace, and enjoying New Years festivities.
1 comment:
Thats so cool!!! The tuk tuk/ walking group story is kind of funny, I bet the walkers at least enjoyed walking through part of Bangkok. I'm glad everyones having a good time :)
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