Bangkok Has Him Now!

After saying goodbye to Thailand's islands, it was time to dive head first into its capital, Bangkok. We opted to not stay in the backpacker area aka Khao San Road and got a hotel in the Sukhimvit area. Although our hotel, Tune, was located outside the main tourist area of Banglamphu, it was conveniently located a couple of blocks from the skytrain and metro stations. This made it pretty easy to get around most places in the city.

Since the metro doesn't go directly into the tourist area, we took it as far as we could and then made our way through Chinatown on foot. Hands down, this was the craziest Chinatown we have come across on this trip. Everywhere you looked was a new sight often accompanied with a new smell... some good and some not so good. We saw everything from huge shark fins used in soups (which we found pretty upsetting given the common practice of finning sharks and leaving them to die) to some interesting individuals selling sex toys out of suitcases along the road. Trying to make our way down one of the claustrophobic passageways while taking in everything that we were seeing and dodging motorbikes was sensory overload.

Shark fin and bird nest soup restaurants

Massive shark fins

Anything you can imagine is sold here

Tuk tuk in Chinatown

From Chinatown, we continued onto Banglampu. Luckily, we knew to bypass the tuk-tuk drivers who were falsely claiming that the temples we were walking to were closed. Of course they were graciously offering their "services" to take us to another lucky Buddha temple that was open. We kindly brushed them off and made our way to Wat Pho to see the iconic reclining Buddha. The famous statue and surrounding ornate stuppas were quite impressive. That day, we also wanted to see the Royal Palace which was just up the road, but unfortunately it was closing as we arrived. We made our way back there the next day to see it and by chance it was closed for a special royal ceremony.

Stupas in Wat Pho

Reclining Buddha

Lots of Buddhas

 

There were many more fantastic temples in Bangkok and two others that stood out were the Temple of the Golden Buddha and the Golden Mount. The Golden Buddha was just as described, a large Buddha statue made of solid gold. The Golden Mount was built up on a man made hill offering great views of the city.

Temple of the Golden Buddha

Over 5 tons of solid gold

Top of the Golden Mount Temple

Great view of Bangkok

Buddha statue in Golden Mount

While walking around the city, we noticed that many people were wearing amulets which are charms depicting deities or highly regarded Buddhist monks. Some people had one while others had several adorning their neck. Since it had peaked our interest, we decided to check out the large amulet market near the royal palace. The vendors line the streets with tables and tables of different amulets. The prices varied from cheap to extremely expensive and we even saw some men examining them with a gemologist loupe. I was even tempted to get one for safe travels but then remembered I really don't like jewelry and the interest quickly passed.

Amulet shopping

It was insanely hot in Bangkok while we were there. We decided that museums are usually a good way to beat the heat and headed for the National Museum. While it had some interesting exhibits, it is an open air museum and didn't provide much in the way of cooling off. One of the best exhibits at the museum was the royal chariots which are still used for special occasions by the Thai Royalty. They were housed in a large hanger that could be opened up to let the immense chariots out.

One of several Royal chariots

Although we avoided staying on backpacker row, we knew that a trip to Bangkok is not complete without a walk down the infamous Khao San Road. You can get anything you want on this little stretch of skid row: cheap beer, tattoos, a tailored suit, any array of drugs you fancy, a fake student id, press pass, diploma or even a California driver's license. It was quite a sight to see, and we were glad we decided to stay elsewhere while in the city.

Pick your poison

We were in the city on May 7, 2014 when Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was outed from her position in what was deemed as a judicial coup. In all honesty, my knowledge of the politics in South East Asia was non-existent before this trip, but since being here, I have taken a real interest in it. I started to follow the story on the BBC news and became very interested in the political divide between the royalist, urban elite, and anti-government "yellow shirts" and the rural, working class, and pro-government "red shirts." While we were visiting some of the Siam Square shopping malls, we saw our first protestors. They were some middle aged women and their daughters who were sitting next to us in Starbucks of all places. They were all wearing their Thai flag t-shirts, hats, and lanyards with whistles. These women were "yellow shirts" and supported the dismantling of the current Thai government. I admit I was disappointed they weren't actually wearing yellow shirts. It's hard to summarize Thai politics in a few sentences, but my general take on it was the yellow shirts want to do away with the current government and install an unelected people's council to supervise a political reform of the country. This is all started with a former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was also outed from power in a military coup in 2006. He is currently living in self imposed exile but is still considered influential in the Shinawatra political clan which has won major elections for the past decade. They are generally seen as favoring the rural, working class and farmers. Yingluck was regarded as a puppet for her brother by the yellow shirts which largely led to this last coup.

The protestors were not exactly a menacing mob that you so commonly see on the news reports regarding political protests and coups. We did hear reports of some tear gas being used by the police and someone throwing a grenade at a judge's house, but we didn't see anything out of the ordinary ourselves. The day we left Bangkok, there were supposed to be some counter-protest by the red shirts. While I was very interested in what was going on and a small part of me wanted to see a protests firsthand, we decided it was a good thing we were moving on from Bangkok when we did. As an American, it seemed so odd to me that anyone would want to do away with the democratic process and put an unelected council in place to run the country.

No photo! No Photo!

While we were in Cambodia, the Thai military launched a coup against the caretaker government left in place after the removal of Yingluck. On May 22, 2014, the military took control of the country and put a nationwide curfew in place, declared martial law, repealed part of the constitution, censored internet and foreign news media, and banned all political gatherings. It will be interesting continuing to follow the story as it unfolds. It seems the future of Thai politics is still very much uncertain.

We just returned to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand after visiting Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. We have seen a few military trucks and troops stationed in the city, but there doesn't seem to be any sense of danger or trouble. The curfew was also lifted nationwide on June 13 which seems to have eased tensions and signify things are getting back to normal... as much as possible.