Running around in Bangkok

We finished up breakfast and went with Lada's mom to the local temple. The overwhelming majority of Thailand is Buddhist, and the official religion is Theravada, the oldest surviving school of Buddhism. Lada's mother had prepared plastic baggies with food offerings for the monks. She dropped us off and we brought the offerings with us.

About twenty monks were seated in what looked like a park on a raised ring of concrete, facing inside the ring. Laypeople like us were gathered around the ring, seated on benches, against trees, or just on the ground. The monks were chanting in unison, and the supplicants would join in at times. Lada thinks they were chanting in Sanskrit.

The whole scene was very interesting to me. The gathered people didn't seem to be dressed according to any rules. The ceremony was completely open: people came and went as they pleased. Some had books from which they read along during the chanting, while others simply sat meditatively, chanting along from memory. Knowing this may sound silly, I'll say it anyway: it felt a lot more religious than every other church service I've been to. And that's without even being able to understand what they were saying.

After the chanting ended, people gave their offerings to the monks. Some offerings were cooked rice and vegetables in baggies like ours, while others were fresh fruit. The scene was rounded out, however, with bottled water and prepackaged candy.

Lada's mom drove us next to a port on the Chao Phraya river. Tickets were 13 baht each. (US$1≈฿30) The long, diesel-powered boat came puttering up to the dock pretty quickly. It seated about 40 people. As we got on, it came a cloud, and we had to pull down the plastic window flaps before we got soaked from the sideways rain.

We got off the boat about five stops downstream. There was a little market at the port, so we decided to stop for lunch. We went for some Pad Thai, a common Thai dish. It's a mixture of stir-fried rice noodles and egg, with varying mixtures of shrimp, chicken, bean sprouts, or other add-ons. This was my first time trying it, and it was amazing. Three orders of Pad Thai and three bottles of water ran us a total of ฿150.

After lunch, we headed to the Grand Palace. The complex has a dress code for visitors, so Augie and I had to rent a pair of MC Hammer pants before entering the palace grounds.

The palace was spectacular. We arrived just in time for a free guided tour, and our guide was great. His English was really good, though I enjoyed listening for his pronunciation problems. (He seemed to have trouble producing a "v" sound, just like most Indonesians I met last year.)

Besides the palace, the grounds house several temples. One of them is completely plated in gold, and is restricted to the royal family. Another houses the Emerald Buddha, a green jade statue clothed in gold. Encircling the complex is a wall displaying a mural of the Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic.

As we were nearing the end of our tour, an afternoon thunderstorm rolled in. Had it not been for my camera, I wouldn't have minded getting soaked; the shower was a refreshing change from the sweltering heat. As it was, we waited for the rain to subside somewhat, and made our way out of the complex. Along the way, we stopped at a massage parlor. Augustin wanted to get one, since Thai massage is apparently world-renowned. I didn't really care either way, so I went in for one, too.

Half an hour's massage cost ฿220. Lada couldn't justify paying this much, so she sat and waited for us. The massage was nice. I haven't gotten any kind of massage since the Rutherford Massage Club at UGA, which made this one turn me all nostalgic. The lady didn't use any oil, and she wasn't very rough, which I had been worried about. To Augie's great dismay, there was not a happy ending.