Thailand - The Land of Smiles

The Floating Market, Tiger Temple, and Bridge over the River Kwai

We had both read and heard about the The Tiger Temple (real name Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampannoin) Kanchanaburi (about two hours out of Bangkok) and it was something that we both really wanted to do. In fact, if there was one thing I wanted to do in Thailand, (other than sit on a beach) it was to visit this incredible animal sanctuary.

We bought a day trip package from a travel agent near Khao San Road for 600 baht each. A pretty good deal considering the rip-off artist the night before tried to sell the same thing to us for 1700! The trip was going to take us to the floating market, the bridge over the River Kwai (known as the Death Bridge), and the Tiger Temple.

We got picked up from our hotel at around 8:30 and boarded a mini bus with eight other tourists. Some of the them were on half day tours to the floating market only, but there were 60 of us in all, (ten mini vans) with only one tour guide.

After a two hour drive into the countryside we arrived at a dock where we boarded a longtail boat for a twenty minute drive around the canals. When we got off we were at the market. Which is basically a long canal where longtail boats park and sell their wares to the tourists passing in other boats. There was a major traffic jam while we were there, but we eventually made it from one end to the other and back again.

Longtail boats in a row. Doesn't the water look clean?!

Life on the canals...

One end of the market.

Traffic jam - watch out for "boat rage"!!! (Imagine having to go through this to get to the corner store!)

The most interesting part was the local people. So many interesting faces everywhere we couldn't shoot fast enough, but managed to take a ton of photos anyway. Ranya bought some spices for herself and to give as gifts, I didn't actually buy anything because it all seemed so touristy and didn't see anything that I really wanted.

A fruit vendor.

A vendor.

Not happy about the traffic!

Bags and miscellaneous junk for sale...

Meat anyone?

We got off our boat and still had about 45 minutes to kill so we wandered around the part of the market that was on ground. We bought some fresh mango and a bunch of these little fruits whose name we still don't know, but that were delicious.

Mysterious fruit... anyone know what these are?

After waiting around for some direction we got into a different mini van (some people were headed back to Bangkok and some were headed to lunch and the rest of the tour. After a few minutes on the road we all had to stop (I think to pick up some people who went to the snake farm) and shortly after that it came to the attention of the tour guide that we were missing two people! They had apparently gotten on the bus to Bangkok by mistake.

After a kerfuffle (sp?) by the side of the road we were on our way again. We were sitting in the front seat of the van and I remember the exact moment that our van went in the opposite direction as all the others. I pointed at the other vans, but the Thai drive chose to ignore me. I figured he must know what he was doing - maybe in a perfect world. We spent the next two hours lost in the middle of nowhere trying to find the lunch restaurant.

At lunch the driver started saying that we might have to skip the Tiger Temple. Ranya and I were livid. We managed to convince the others in our van to skip the bridge over the river Kwai instead. So we were finally headed to the temple at around 2:30 PM - nearly an hour and a half later than we were meant to be.

The tigers are only available to the public for a few hours a day - mid-afternoon, when it's like the middle of the night for them since they are nocturnal - and we started to worry that we would miss them. thankfully, for us AND the tour agency, this did not happen. We got to the temple at exactly the right time actually because shortly after we arrived a huge group of other tourist arrived and then it started to rain.

Entering Tiger Canyon.

In awe...

Still in awe...

And, yes... still... in awe...

Okay, now it's amazement! I was petting him right on the belly - the biggest tiger there!

Ranya had her share of awe (and a better photographer)...

Someone's getting antsy...

One of the reasons you have to sign a disclaimer when you enter... look at those teeth!

Just a big kitty...

It was one of the most incredible experience I've had in my entire life. They are huge animals. They are majestic and beautiful. They are like giant kittens that could rip out your throat in a second. Don't get me wrong, it's not like you're standing there just petting a tiger. There are volunteers that guide you around the area - they hold your hand, place you next to the tiger ant then take your picture for you with your own camera.

The abbot of the monastery, Phra Acharn Phusit, is also there at all times. He is the man behind it all. In 1999, he took in a tiger cub whose mother had been killed by poachers. That cub died a few weeks after his arrival. The abbot was devastated. Then something miraculous happened, another two cubs just showed up one day, and the rest as they say, is history. People started bringing more injured and abandoned tigers to the temple and now the tigers outnumber the monks.

The abbot to the rescue... it's time to behave now! (He didn't hit him, just let him have a sniff of his hand.)

"Yes! You're a cutie, yes you are... who's the cutie?" Doing that would be even more incredible...

It was amazing to see the way that the abbot played with his "children". they would get grumply with him, and a few swatted at him but with no real intention. I wonder what would happen if I walked up to one of them and smacked them on the nose! After spending about 30-40 minutes filling up on pictures, we started the walk back to the front entrance. The grounds of the temple are home to many other kinds of animals - goats, boars, water buffalo, peacocks... that have been injured or abandoned in some way. So, we spent some time wandering around tkaing picture of those and then it was time for us to head back to the tour. We still had the river Kwai to get to - it was the drivers idea to take us there after the tigers.

Water buffalo.

Boars

The ugliest, funniest looking goat on the face of the planet! He followed us to the front entrance... he took a real liking to Ranya!

Back in the mini van, we were all in awe of what we had just experienced. It really is impossible to describe the way you feel when you are sitting next to a wild animal like a tiger. I hope the pictures (and the expression on my face) helps a little.

(Sorry this post is so long... it was a long day... I should probably have split this one up into three... but it's done now... so deal. If you don't want to read it all, then just look at the pictures.)

The bridge

Artsy shot of the bridge before it started really raining...

We arrived at the bridge in late afternoon. It was built by war prisoners and forced labourers of the Japanese during World War II. Around 70,000 of these died during the building of the "Death Railway" and the bridge. The railway was meant to link Thailand to Burma where the Japanese were fighting the British. It was to be used to transport men and supplies. It was made famous by a 1957 movie that depicted a soldier swimming up the river and blowing up the bridge to stop the Japanese from succeeding. The movie is fiction, but the bridge is real and was bombed by allied forces. The most striking part is that so many PoW's and labourers died during its construction. You can actually take a train over the bridge now, but we didn't have time, or , to be honest, the desire. As soon as we got there it started to rain like nothing I've ever seen (aside, maybe, from the typhoon that hit Korea last year!)

You can actually see the rain... it abated after about 10 minutes.

It took forever to get back to the hotel on Khao San road and we were exhausted after hours on the mini bus and the drama of being lost and maybe not seeing the tigers. We made an early night of it, since we had to be up at 6 AM to get to the airport for our flight to Surat Thani in the middle of the country... Coming up: Koh Samui where we spent five days hanging around on the beach, riding elephants, and more... so stay tuned!

***
On a side note - back to reality - i have only 9 days left in Korea. woohoo! and today is my birthday...my 30th birthday to be precise. I'm still not sure how I feel about this, but I'm sure I'll have lots to say on the subject after my party this weekend!

Thailand - The Land of Smiles

The Grand Palace and Wat Po - Bangkok, part two

After fruitlessly seeking out the TAT we decided that the afternoon would be well spent checking out some cultural/touristy things in Bangkok. The major attraction being, of course, the Grand Palace - where the King and Queen live.

So we headed there in early afternoon - on foot - it's about a 20 minute walk from Khao San Road.

Inside the entrance at the Grand Palace - the Upper Terrace in the background

The Grand Palace was built in 1782 by King Rama I. It houses the throne halls, government offices and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (closed for renovations while we were there).

One of the main attractions is the Upper Terrace where four monuments are found; a reliquary in the shape of a golden chedi; the mondop - a repository for Buddhist sacred scriptures; a miniature model of Angkor Wat (in Cambodia); and the Royal Pantheon where statues of former Kings are enshrined.

The reliquary on the Upper Terrace

Angkor Wat model

A statue guarding the Royal Pantheon

upon entering the main area - this is part of the Hor Phra Rajphongsanusorn.

Entrance to Hor Phra Monthian Dharma

It didn't take long to walk around the complex - a lot of it is closed off to tourists. The picture taking was amazing - so much colour and detail in all the buildings. I can't post them all here, but here are a few of the more artsy shots I took.

Looks like a really big hat! (sort of)

One of many statues around the Terrace.

A sort of hand/foot that is a stair railing.

A close up of the tiny gold squares that cover the reliquary. (you can see my shadow with Ranya beside me.)

More of the reliquary.

After sufficiently wandering around we left the Grand Palace complex and headed next door to Wat Po, or Temple of the Reclining Buddha. My camera battery died as we were on our way there - ARGH!!! I was really upset about it, but at least we had Ranya's camera!

Wat Po was built in the 16th century and is the oldest, largest and most active temple in Bangkok. It is considered to be Thailand's first university because many of the monuments and artwork explains principles of religion, science, and literature.

I'm not sure why the Big Buddha is called that because the reclining Buddha is about 100 times it's size! We weren't expecting it when we walked in, but it must be the biggest Buddha in the world!

The head of the Reclining Buddha

The backside of the head.

Me and Ranya standing near it's feet.

The underside of the feet - inlaid with mother of pearl... also the biggest toes i've ever seen!

Just to make things even more "picturesque" here are some shots from around the grounds of Wat Po...

Big bell

Some giant statues.

A smaller statue in the garden.

We probably could have spent a little more time there, but we were tired from walking all day and had a long trek back to Khao San. We left the temple and started walking back... but we ended up taking a tuk-tuk...

Stay tuned for more tales of Thailand... coming next is the floating market and the Tiger Temple...

Thailand - The Land of Smiles

Bangkok - part one

I flew out of Seoul, Incheon International Airport on Sunday August 5th. I spent the previous day wandering around Seoul and bought my new camera at the electronics market. It's a Canon EOS 20D - and i love it. It was really great to hold a "real" camera in my hands again. I shot around 2000 photos in two weeks with it! And there are thousands more to come, I'm sure.

Anyway, I flew with Thai Air - which was lovely. I lucked out on my flight there when the two people sitting next to me changed seats after take-off to be closer to the TV - so I had three seats to myself to lie down and lounge on! It was the next best thing to being in business or first class! The food was really good, the service was decent, (the only thing I would say wasn't prefect actually) the seats were comfortable, and i got to use the business class bathroom since i was so close to the front of the plane - the furthest forward I've ever been actually (not on the wing like usual).

My lunch on Thai Air - pork curry with rice; fresh fruit; cake; coffee; salad; warm bun; kimchi; dried seaweed.

We landed a half hour early - which I thought was great, but Ranya landed late, so we had a bit of trouble finding each other, but it worked out in the end. After catching up for a bit, we grabbed a taxi into town. We had booked a hotel on Khao San Road (major backpacker area) the Siam Oriental Inn. At 550 baht (100 baht is about 3 dollars Canadian) a night it was a bit on the pricey side (for cheap accommodation) but we had two beds, air conditioning, a fan, and a hot shower.

We got there without incident - unless you count the haggling with the taxi driver which continued for half the trip - we eventually, and thankfully agreed to a price.

Khao San Road is known as the backpacker area of Bangkok - cheap food, drinks, shopping, hotels/hostels and a crazy night life. It is also close to all of the major cultural sites in the city, so it was perfect for us since we only had two days in the city.

After dumping our bags at the hotel we headed onto the street to eat some real pad thai from a street vendor - at 15 baht each, it was a steal!

Our pad Thai being prepared... the spring rolls were yummy too!

We went back to the hotel to nap for a bit, and take a shower, then headed into the night. We left Khao San and walked around randomly and found the grand palace - which is gorgeous when lit up at night. I didn't have my tripod, but tried to get a shot anyway.

The Grand Palace at night - sorry it's a little out of focus...

That when we were accosted by the tuk-tuk drivers hanging around the area. We finally agreed to go for a little tour with one of them - we got to see the "Big Buddha" Temple, but again it was night so the picture isn't great...

the Big Buddha

Then the driver told us he'd take us to the Tourist Authority of Thailand (TAT) to book any day trips we wanted to take. Of course, this was not the real TAT - which we knew so we didn't book anything with them. The tuk-tuk drivers in Bangkok will always try to take you somewhere other than where you want to go - usually it's somewhere that they'll get a commission from if you buy something. More later... we had many experiences with the tuk-tuks of Bangkok.

The driver dropped us off on Khao San where we had a couple of drinks at the Hippie Hi Bar. It had a really nice atmosphere, funky decorations, and good music. We talked until late and then hit the sack as we had a long day ahead of us on Monday.

Monday morning we decided to try to find the real TAT - which we did but they weren't at all helpful... it was a nice walk through the streets of Bangkok though. We had our photo taken by some random Thai lady. We passed by lots of government buildings, saw the Democracy Monument, Wat Ratchanadda, and the Old City Parapet.

The Democracy Monument

Again... Closer up...

Wat Ratchanadda

The Old City Parapet

I didn't shoot the government buildings - they were really big and always had a picture of the King on them but they weren't particularly beautiful or interesting.

Our walk back had a lot of random shots of different things... here are some examples:

mmm... street food... there are stalls everywhere!

Street cleaning - everything is manual in Thailand!

There are "gates" like this all over Bangkok.

The public phones are neon green and orange...

and the taxis are pink and purple! (there are black and yellow too...)

A canal running through the city.

A hotel displaying a giant photo of the King - Thais take their monarchy very seriously and you can be thrown in jail for insulting them... especially the King. There are photos like this all over the country.

This post is already too long... I'll save the real cultural stuff for tomorrow... so stay tuned for the Grand Palace and Wat Po (the reclining Buddha Temple) and more... these posts are going to take forever! If I feel up to it, I might post those later today... please bear with me, dear readers... I like to be detailed...

tigers and elephants and thais, oh my!

i'm back! this is going to be a quick post as i'm knackered from traveling overnight and i'm still not thinking straight. so as a preview of things to come:

August 5th i arrived in Bangkok and met R at the airport. we toured around the sights on the 6th - the grand palace, the reclining buddha, and other places in the city.

on the 7th - we took a tour to the floating market and the tiger temple, and made a quick stop at the bridge over the river kwai.

the 8th brought us back to the airport to fly (domestic) to surat thani about halfway down the country - a long bus ride and then a ferry brought us to our "home" on the islands - Koh Samui. we experienced local thai culture, a touristy elephant ride, swimming under waterfalls, and lots of beach time.

the 13th (my "birthday" in thailand) we boarded a high speed catamaran for the island of Koh Tao - otherwise known as paradise.

on the 16th it was back to samui for the night and a flight to bangkok on the 17th (didn't want to leave...)

out last weekend saw us checked into a most luxurious, gorgeously decorated boutique hotel in chinatown... it was heaven - a little paradise dropped in the middle of hectic bangkok.

anyway, that's the quickie version. if it's enough for you then don't come back for a while, the next couple of days/weeks will be devoted to my "series on thailand" so stay tuned for more details.

and just to whet your appetite for all the amazing photos i've taken with my new Canon EOS 20D, here's me with a real live tiger:

aww... just a big pussy cat really...

in other news, i'm leaving korea in 12 days...

it's actually august

I can't believe how quickly time goes by. I know I’ve said this before on this blog... but everything is just happening so fast and it's making me think too much. I’m leaving for Thailand on Saturday. First stop is Seoul for the day - where I will finally buy my digital SLR!!! My flight leaves from Incheon international airport on Sunday at 9 AM. So this might be the last post for a while, though I haven't been posting much of late anyway, and for that, I am sorry.

It’s amazing that I’ve made it. I have a total of eight teaching days left. Tomorrow is the last day of summer camp and then I have seven days when I return from Thailand. If you had asked me in November if I’d still be here in August the answer would have been NO WAY! But here I am, and much better/happier for it too.

I’m really happy that I stayed. I know that I would have regretted leaving and I don’t like to have regrets. Every year around the time of my birthday I inevitably think back on my life and try to come to terms with the bad things that have happened, and to revel in the good. This year is no exception. (I know it’s still another couple of weeks to the “big day” but like I said, things are moving fast and making me think a lot.

I’ve recently been in touch with a lot of old friends thanks to the oh-so-addictive facebook. It’s great to get in touch, but not so great to think of the friends that seem to be lost forever. (Why isn’t everyone on facecrack???) Thinking about certain people makes me realize that I do, in fact, have regrets – though I try to tell myself I don’t – but I do. There are some things in life that I would change if I could, but then where would I be today? I can't let myself regret most things, because what I have done in my life is what has made me who I am, right? Still, there are situations that I wish would have gone differently. I've learned, though, from those "mistakes" to always ask myself if I will regret doing or not doing something.

It was the same exactly one year ago when I was deciding to actually come here or not. I felt like I was leaving things behind and that they would never be the same, and I thought that if I stayed in Canada, that maybe things wouldn’t change (yeah, naïve, I know). A friend told me that if I didn’t then I would always wonder “what if?” and I decided that I would regret not coming, so here I am. And a year later I know it was the right thing.

Well, now I’m wondering if going home is “the right thing” to do. I am going home. It’s a done deal. At least I know that I can come back anytime I want (I think that’s something else I told myself upon my arrival here). Something in the back of my mind keeps telling me that I need to find “the next big adventure” and I know that that adventure is life. I may be turning the BIG 3-0 in a few weeks, but that doesn’t mean I have to settle down, does it? Because I don’t think I’m ready, and I really don’t want to. Anyone have a boat and want to sail around the world with me?

***

Even though I’m leaving Korea in a month I’ve already started saying my goodbyes. A lot of waegooks are going to their home countries for the month of August and most of them will only be back after I leave. So, to those of you who I will most likely never see again, “Cheers! Maybe see you in another life.”