A Day in Bangkok (Day 5)

I only had one day in Bangkok before I had to fly off to Hanoi and so I decided to take a day tour of the highlights. I ended up with a car, driver and guide, all to myself. The morning was mostly spent looking at various temples. After my experience in Hong Kong, I was slightly wary of spending much time visiting more temples, but I am glad to say it was well worth it. The three temple sites were nothing short of spectacular. They also seemed to be treated with more respect than the temples in Hong Kong. For example, you have to remove shoes before you can enter and photography is prohibited in most of the temple buildings.
The first temple, Wat Trimitr, houses the so called "Golden Buddah". This is fifteen feet tall, weighs five tons and is made of solid gold. It is over 700 years old and was originally covered in plaster, to hide it from Thailand's enemies. It was only in 1955 that it was discovered to be solid gold and was then completely cleaned of its plaster covering, revealing the spleandour we see today.

The Wat Phra Kaew (Grand Palace) was equally impressive. This is not just one building, but a huge complex of dozens of buildings covering sixty acres. The buildings are nearly all covered in gold leaf and/or porcelain. Apparently, the porcelain came from China (no pun intended). Thailand used to export tons of rubies and emeralds to China and in order to give ballast to the ships on the way back and to equalise the balance of trade, they used to import Chinese porcelain. A lot of this was broken on the journey and on some of the buildings you can see where the broken porcelain was used. For example, one wall showed a scene of a ship, with the sea made up of broken bowls and plates in what looked something like Willow Pattern.

The name Bangkok is never used by Thais and, indeed, many people from outside the capital would not even know the name. Roughly translated, Bankok means City of Angels (c.f. Los Angeles). Its real name is actually the longest ciy name in the world: "Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit", which translates to "The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayuthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn".  Of course, in everyday use this is always abbreviated, usually just to Krung Thep.

The Thai alphabet has 44 letters, but makes no use of upper case.  The language is tonal, but only has five vowels, and, like the Chinese languages, slight changes in the way a vowel is pronounced completely change the meaning, so that there may be up to five different words that to us would sound virtually the same. The language itself is rather similar to Lao, the language of Laos, so much so that the people can understand each other.

Thailand was never colonised by any Western nation, although it did come to an accord with the Japanese in WW2 to let them have access through Thailand.  In 19th century, the king was so proud of never having been colonised that he decided to erect a large building in a European style to show that he could do everything the West could do. He lost heart at the end, though, and stuck a Thai roof on the top, with lots of gold, symbolic creatures, etc. (see picture above).  This building is part of the Grand Palace complex.

Thailand did occupy Cambodia for a while and the then king decided he would like to move Ankor Wat to Thailand.   However, he decided it was too large an enterprise and so he build a model of Ankor Wat at the Grand Palace.

95% of the population is Buddhist, with some Hindus, a few Muslims (in the south, towards Malaysia) and a smattering of Christians and other religions.  The people appear to be quite spiritual and have a strong love of their king and royal family.  Even today, all Thai men are expected to join a monastery for three months when they are about twenty for their religious education. Nowadays, with much more widespread schooling, many men will only spend a week or so in the monastery.

There are a lot of street demonstrations going on at present (some of which I saw).  This is in an attempt to re-establish Thaksin Shinawatra as Prime Minister and certainly not to overthrow the king.  Shinawatra, the ex-Prime Minister and ex-Manchester City owner, was ousted in a military coup in 2006 and now lives in self-imposed exile in Dubai after receiving a two-year sentence in his absence for abuse of power.  The  'Red' protestors have vowed to continue protesting until the Government falls.  In the meantime, the Government has strengthened its powers and says it will not give in.  Troops are clearly in evidence on the streets, particularly near the airport.

The city is very lively, espcially at night, although I am sorry to disappoint in saying that I never made it to any of the well-known fleshpots.

A few random facts and observations:

• "The King and I" is banned in Thailand since it doesn't give a good impression of the monarchy.
• It is considered very bad manners to touch someone on the head or hair, but not on the bum. You do see people do the lotus greeting and then lightly stroke each others bottoms.
• There are lots of of fifyish white men walking round holding hands with young Thai girls, looking quite ridiculous. I am sure they would not do that with their wives or girlfriends in England.