Bangkok Adventures

Bangkok adventures

The Indefatigable Peacemaker, Calm Abecedarian, and I took a boat to an old pagoda, and then walked for hours throughout the city. There isn't a lot of detail in this post because after Wat Aurn, I didn't necessarily know what I was seeing. We would simply wander wherever looked cool and would stumble on sites like an abandoned field where workers were playing sepak takraw, a path filled with hundreds of runners, and a park in the center of the city where a communal aerobics session was being run. There are so few opportunities to simply explore with no conception of what you will find, where you are heading, or how you'll get back. None of us had an agenda and we were happy to simply be together.

Wat Arun

We started our day in Bangkok going to Wat Arun. Constructed as a Buddhist temple, it is now named after a Hindu god.

There is a large, climbable central area that is surrounded by four spires.

The entrance

Two of the towers

 

The stairs are steep, but worth the climb

From the top you could see the boy monks who lived nearby

It seemed that the temple was a great place to sleep

Guard hard at work

The temple was also guarded by guardians both big and small

The guardians are called yaksha. Yaksha appear in different forms (mostly benevolent) in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jainism (old Indian religion). The Thai often incorporate them in temples to protect the area.

Statues

Around the temple, there were lots of statues

 

I really liked the stone statues

 

One of the aspects of the temple that was so amazing was the intricate detail. I can’t imagine how much time it would take to do so much in-laying

 

  

Bangkok

From on top of the temple, there were great views of the city

As we walked around, we passed by many of Bangkok’s main sites

The Grand Palace from the park

 

Ridiculousness

We meandered around the Ratchaprasong Skywalk and stopped whenever we saw something interesting or a side street that should be explored.

There was a roadside shrine

A shark fin restaurant

We saw different kinds of elephants

 

This was the second time I rode an elephant in Thailand

We even saw penguins

We made sure the eagle stayed hydrated

And found a clothing store for aliens

My first girlfriend (way back in high school) was (and still is) Thai,
although she was not made of cardboard like my date for the red carpet.

So many of my friends wonder where are all the exceptional, available Christian women. These women definitely qualify as fun, chill, kind, women of God and both are moving within a year so they could be coming to a city near you!

Safety

We made sure to follow the safety instructions

Luckily, the authorities made sure no one drank beer from those perilous hours of 2pm to 5pm

It's good to know you can wash your hands in the sink in the bathroom.
Btw, who washes their teeth at the mall bathroom?

Bangkok is miserably hot and we loved when we could pop
 into stores for an air conditioning break. Cold drinks were also essential

And we made sure to use travellators when we could

 

The US needs more ramp escalators

Scenery

When we went on our day to the elephants, floating market, and cobras, we saw some great scenes from the countryside

 

 

I could identify the banana trees due to playing video games

Roadside lake

It was also great to walk down one street and see some of the beauty in Bangkok

 

We found these flowers by peeping over a fence:

Goodbye

At the end of our day, the Busking Polyglot met up with us for a last meal

Then he showed me to the subway and I was off to Oceania

One last massive statue at the airport. You can see the snake wrapped around the middle