Bangkok Tours

The gifts color coordinate with the monks' robes.

After a very light breakfast, we start off the day with a private tour through Bangkok Food Tours.  We're in the old part of town, called Bangrak.  Our guide describes herself as Chinese Thai, because historically her family came from China.  But her family has been in Thailand for many generations and consider themselves Thai.  It's surprising how long people hold on to their ancestral culture.  At this point I'd think they would just consider themselves Thai, period.  I get the impression that it's very regional here, like Italy.

Our guide is wonderful and overflowing with information - it's hard to remember it all.  I'm glad to have one of my questions answered - there are all these "gift basket" items at many of the stores along the street.  Turns out those are items you can purchase to give as offerings to the monks.  Since monks are not supposed to handle money, they only subsist on items that are given to them.  So this is similar to the donation we gave at the temple in Vietnam.

Mataba flat bread - one of the many dishes we tried!

On the tour we eat items from different regions of Thailand and other than the green curry, everything is new to us.  We start off in Chinatown and work our way around to different restaurants.  When Steve can't resist the woman with the roti (crepe) cart, our guide happily orders a banana crepe for us.  It's delicious, and one of our favorite items of the day.  The sweetened condescended milk topping (we saw it everywhere in Bangkok) gives it a special flavor.

I'm sure her hands are clean.

Steve enjoying his roti treat.

We stop at six different restaurants (plus the crepe) and try thirteen items (plus the crepe).  Our favorites are the mataba flat bread and meang kham (plus the crepe).  Meang kham translates to "one bite wrap," and I've noticed along the sidewalks in Bangkok little bags of all the ingredients for sale.  Our guide bought one full of herbs, greens, dried shrimp and other items.  You then take a leaf, and pile some of the filling into it, roll it up, and eat it!  It tastes so fresh and light - it makes a great snack. 

Meang kham bags - for less than $1!

Yum, yum!

Fried chicken with lemongrass - a northern Thai recipe.

Thai ice tea - I need a cold drink after walking in the heat!

As we walk around, I'm amused by the advertising sign right in front of Starbucks (which naturally has the prime corner real estate).  I want to go back and try one of the Ring Cafe coffees, but unfortunately we don't return to this area.

I'm also amazed by this guy, carrying a wide variety of items.  He looks like he does this all the time.  

All in a day's work!

In addition, we catch site of the hotel that hosts some pivotal scenes in the movie Hangover II.  We don't make it up to the Sky Bar, though the views are supposed to be incredible.

Sky Bar at Lebua State Tower

Our final location involves our choice of ice cream.  Of course, Steve's is eaten before I can get a picture in.

Check out those cool reflective vests! (and the back streets of Bangkok)

We have a couple of hours' break before our evening bike tour with Follow Me Bike Tours.  We don't book a private tour this time, but we end up being the only ones for the night.  It lasts for six hours, though we don't ride the entire time.  After sitting in all the traffic the previous day, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go out in it on a bike.  However, they do a great job planning out the route. We start off on back roads and go through little alleys. It's a great way to travel through the back streets of Bangkok.

Wat Yannawa - see the front of the boat?

We visit a few Buddhist temples along the way and I particularly like Wat Yannanwa.  It's very peaceful, the gardens are pretty, and it has a giant junk (boat) in the middle of the plants.  It doesn't look like the other temples we've seen!

Is that a ghost in the window?

This building is pretty prominent in downtown Bangkok, but even by the picture you can tell it's uninhabited (and it's the only one without a poster of the deceased king on it).  I ask all our guides about it, and they all tell a slightly different story.  The Sathron Unique Skyscraper was supposed to be a luxury apartment building, but the 1997 Asian financial crisis caused the project to be abandoned.  It's believed to be haunted, and all our guides tell varying stories of people being found dead inside.  It's known as the Ghost Tower, and locals stay away from it.  Apparently it's become popular with foreign "urban explorers" though, and supposedly the guards will accept a bribe if you want access inside.  But you've been warned...not everyone makes it back out.

After the temples, we take a break to watch the sun set across the river and behind a pagoda.  

pretty scene

Chicken soup - good, but not like Mom's!

Our next stop is in Chinatown, where we walk around for awhile and try various street foods.  I'm sure Tom, our guide, picked all the hygienic places!  Everything tastes great, though I don't know if I'll ever be able to find the same carts again.

We have an amusing moment with Tom - we're served one item and the vendor only has chopsticks. Tom looks at us and asks if we're okay with them. We just look at him for a couple of seconds, and I reply yes. Then he remembers we live in Japan. Chopsticks are not a problem for us!

Chowing down in Chinatown!

You can even get drive through service from the food carts!
I'm just glad it's not the driver texting on the phone.

Common sight in nighttime Chinatown -
tables of lottery tickets for sale.

Chinatown selfie, with the stylin' vest.
Maybe I'll start a trend!

Then we ride to the Flower Market, the biggest in the world. It's open 24 hours, but we're there during the "slow" period so there's less tourists and we don't get in the worker's way.  It's almost all marigolds because most of the flowers are for offerings, so there's little variety. They're still pretty to view and to appreciate some of the religious arrangements being made. 

Some of the floral arrangements

Bagging up the marigolds -
maybe the gold color will bring wealth!

Orchids in different colors

Roses ready to be given to your wife (hint, hint)!

Stupas (built to hold relics and ashes)

Continuing on our bike ride brings us to Wat Pho, another of the well known temples in Bangkok. It's completely empty, even though it's lit up beautifully at night.  During the day it's packed, like the Grand Palace.  Of course, the official massage school is here, and you can get massages during the day - that might contribute to the number of people at the temple.  It also hosts the reclining Buddha, another famous statue. (It's closed at night, but I have no fear that we'll run out of Buddhas to behold).

The stupas have a different appearance than many of the other temples we've observed in Bangkok.  There's no glass, but the mosaics are made of pottery and are three dimensional.  It's not as flashy as the other buildings, but 
                                                             has it's own pleasant design.

Can you tell the flowers are 3-D?

After sharing some of the history Tom teaches us how to take a lotus bud and fold the petals so we can make an offering.  Now I know why merchants are selling these buds at the temples!

Before

After.  Not bad for my first one!

There's some fun guard statues here, too.  This one looks like a cross between the Pirates of the Caribbean monster and a man from 18th century London (really - a top hat??)

Normally on the tour we would also stop at the Grand Palace to see it lit up at night.  However, in the evening it's only open to the mourners making their respects to the king.  We watch as hundreds of Thai people line up to go in tonight.

Delicious!

We stop to try some more street food. Our food guide (from the morning) recommended we try this if we came across it - it's like a little wafer, with a toasted marshmallow/custard on it, with yolk candy shredded on top (I think it's actually coconut dyed yellow, because the marshmallow is white, so it kind of looks like an egg). It's delicious - my favorite item for the night.

We pause for a quick look at Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn), but it's still under construction so you only get a glimpse through the scaffolding.  Our final spot is the illuminated Wat Prayoon. 

Wat Prayoon

After another trip across the river (apparently it's ok to take the bikes on the water ferries) we finally finish up at 11:00 pm, and we're tired!  And if you thought I was going to finish the post with a story about food poisoning or weird bacteria, you're wrong.  Amazingly, this is the first foreign country we've visited on this side of the world where Steve did not get sick - even after all the street food!