We packed our bags to leave Phuket. All of us were sad to leave this beautiful place (Phuket). but at the same time we were quite excited to see the shopper's paradise and ultimate hip city of Thailand - Bangkok, "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon".
We finished our breakfast and started for Phuket airport. In breakfast there were many options like standard bread, jam, butter, omlette, milk, cornflakes, buns, croissants, soup, fruit bowls, boiled eggs, salads, varieties of cup cakes, boiled potatoes, cookies, and many more such tasty delicacies.
By the time we finished our breakfast the pick up van came and we started our journey for Bangkok. We stayed at Phuket only for some 4 days all total, but already everything, every road started to seem like very known to me. As if I have been there for ages. I was not quite ready to leave Phuket yet. Since we were in a short schedule, so couldn't have stayed back anymore. We had to leave, I had to let it go...
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| Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport |
At that moment I realized the eternal truth of a traveler's life, that every 'place' and 'moment' a traveler goes and lives are like foot prints on a sand dessert; nothing is permanent. Places change, languages differ, looks vary; but the only things which remain the same are the eyes, mind and soul of the traveler! Eyes to behold, mind to remember and soul to color the memories with his own hues...!
Anyway, the secret is that, it was never a good bye from my side, rather I bid adieu to Phuket... :)
From Phuket airport our flight was at 7am and we started on time. When we reached Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport we were mesmerized to see such a huge, neatly maintained and lively airport.
We called our travel agency personnel located at Bangkok and he informed us that one gentleman will come to pick us up from the airport and drive us to our hotel, "Ibis Nana". Ibis is the name of the hotel chain and Nana is the name of the station or area.
So we waited for him and simply clicked some snaps here and there. Did some photo session of each other... ;)
Ultimately when we reached our hotel it was almost 2pm and we were damn hungry. We just kept our luggage inside our rooms and came out to search a nice restaurant to eat. We found one nearby and finished our lunch. Food was great, spicy and colorful. We came back to hotel and didn't came out until late afternoon. Around 5pm we walked till Nana station and hired a Tuktuk (a colorful 3 wheeler ride with all the sides open) and reached MBK shopping mall.
MBK is the biggest and most happening shopping mall there in Bangkok. We simply spent our time window shopping
There was a shop which was selling miniature models of different automobiles and bikes. There were some Harley Davidson and BMW bike models, which were so damn perfect that I almost decided to buy one. But the price tag kept me restrained.
You are not allowed to take pictures inside the mall, but we took these few snaps with our mobiles.
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| MBK Shopping Mall... |
We was there for almost 3-4 hours and then we decided to have our dinner from the there itself. So we went to the food court floor, which was literally huge. If you start walking from one corner and hit all the counters and come back your legs will get weary of walking! There were so many varieties of noodles, so many types of meat and various types of preparations of different areas; it took us nice 30-40 mins to finally decide upon which dish each one of us wanted to have... LOL !
My brother was looking for momos, but he was not able to find any stall which was selling the same. We were not able to describe the dish to the stall attendants. Ultimately one fellow standing over there realized that we were looking for momos, which they call by some other name (Shamoi). Then he showed us these, which were completely different in shape, appearance and taste from the momos which we eat here in India! See below... :)
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| Different types of Momo (Shaomai) |
Anyway, we bought three such different preparations of Shamoies and three bowls of Thai soupy noodles with different meat balls and flavored with varieties of oriental spices. I liked this preparation so much that next 2 days whenever I came to MBK I opted for different permutation and combination of the same dish. I just kept changing the meat from chicken to pork to duck etc etc.
The Shamoies were nice to try out, kind of good experience.
By the time we finished with our dessert item, it was almost time to close the mall and so we just came out in time.
Day 5:
We already had planned our tour on day 5 with our local guide provided by our travel agent. We started our day tour at 7am from our hotel. A cab came to pick us up. Our first destination was the Golden Buddha Temple located at the Chinatown area. This temple is world famous for its Buddha idol made of 22 Carat Gold! It is officially called the "Phra Phuttha Maha Suwan Patimakon" the world's largest solid gold statue!
There is a rule in this temple. You are not supposed to show your bare body or skin in front of Lord Buddha here. So all the girls who were wearing shorts were provided with one wrap around piece of clothes to cover up their bare legs.
I also got one for myself. Leaving our shoes off we entered the temple and "WOW!" was the first expression which came out of our mouth. So Regal, so Elegant, so Pious, so Divine, that it will literally give you prickles on your skin.
The interior was so exotic and royal that you will remain spellbound for a few moments. Specially the Idol of Lord Buddha made of 22 carat gold; I was simply awestruck to behold it.
I got to know from our guide that, this idol, was a return gift from the then Sukhothai dynasty King of Thailand (around 13th - 14th century), who prayed to Lord Buddha to save his life when he was being chased by the rebels during some huge political hue and cry. When Lord Buddha saved him, the King kept his promise and made this Idol with all the gold whatever he managed to carry with him while in exile. The idol then moved from Sukhothai to Ayutthaya.
After many year again some political upheaval arose and some foe power of the King broke one ear of this idol, which was repaired but one can make out the small defect of noticed in detail.
At some point of time the whole statue was plastered with Stucco by the Ayotthaya dynasty to prevent it from being stolen by the Burmese invaders. The idol was brought to its present location at Wat Traimit in 1935. Since the temple was not that big to accommodate this huge statue so it was kept under a tin roof for almost 20 years. So over all for almost 200 years this glorious Buddha Idol was forgotten under the shadow of time!
Ultimately around 1955, when peace came back in the country and the old Buddha temple was reconstructed in to a bigger temple, then the temple management tried to lift the plastered Buddha Idol from them pedestal. But all the ropes which were tied to lift it broke off and the statue fell down hard on the concrete ground. As a result some of the stucco coating came off the idol and construction people got to see the revealed actual golden surface.
Net worth of this 3 meters tall and 5.5 tonnes heavy solid gold idol is about US $250 million. And the excellent information is that, its sculpture and egg shaped head indicates that the Buddha idol was made in India part by part and were assembled in Thailand by the Sukhothai king. Anyway you will find the influence of Indian sculpture in all Sukhothai sculpture and creations. |
| Reclining Buddha Temple, where there is the Holy Mother of Pearl |
Anyway, from Golden Temple we again moved on to the Temple of the Reclining Buddha or Wat Pho at Phra Nakhon District, Rattanakosin, Bangkok near the Grand Palace. The official name of this temple is Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimon Mangkhlaram Ratchaworamahawihan. This temple is the birth place of traditional Thai Massage. Wat Pho is named after the place India where Gautama Buddha was believed to stay. This Reclining Buddha idol is 15 meters tall and 43 meters long. He is reclining his head on his right hand. The foot of Lord Buddha is made Mother of Pearl and depicts 108 auspicious characters of Lord Buddha. People say that this is the biggest sculpture made of Mother of Pearl ever made in the world.
In one side there are 108 bronze "Bhiksha" (alms) bowls are placed where you can give alms of copper coins which you can buy with 20 bahts. It brings you good fortune and at the same time actually helps the Buddhist monks to maintain the temple or Wat. I bought some coins with 20 bahts and dropped there and prayed for all the Thai people who suffered from the nature's cruel lash of Tsunami and is still suffering from man made punishment of poverty.
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| Bangkok Sky-rail... just see how clean the rails are... imagine Indian rails also... |
From there we moved to the sky rail station and traveled to Siam Paragon Shopping complex. The sky rail was awesome, may be seemed more awesome to me as this was my first time I saw and boarded one.
At Siam Paragon Shopping complex (see below) there was some expo fair going on - "world expo 2020". At the shopping mall there were so many people gathering, walking, talking, laughing, shopping... you know they all came from different places of the world. Bangkok is a "Metropitan City" in true sense! We spent the rest of the day there, went to the Ocean world and spent hours in the oceanic animal museum. Overall our day was excellently spent and I will surely remember it all my life! :)
One thing i saw there which made me little sad is that many young girls in their teens and many lady boys posing on the road side. I myself being a naive to such things and being a first timer in Bangkok, or in a way to any foreign country could not make out who is who. But anybody who are well aware of this clandestine world of forbidden pleasure, can make out the identity of those sexy dress clad girls and lady boys in their shocking red or vibrant purple pencil heels standing in front of bars, or hotels or simply on road side.
I felt bad, not because of the fact that Girls were doing it. But because of the fact that society has compelled most of them to take up this profession, to satisfy this medieval ugly facade of the patriarchal society, as a profitable and easy way to make money, that too in dollars. I know that many of them have taken this as a profession because of poverty and hunger, many have taken because this is an easy way to make dollars in hours, and some more were made to do this by the well knit human trafficking channels. But no matter how attractive and shiny this forbidden world may look like this is indeed a scar on the face of the society.
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