Vacation in Thailand

Now that the Indian ban on blogs has been somewhat relaxed, I can write about my trip to Thailand the weekend before last. Thai airways conveniently departs from Bangalore direct to Bangkok at midnight Thursday night; which, allowing for the three hour flight and a short time-zone shift allowed me to clear immigration, exchange some currency, and meet my friend and former San Francisco roomate Kevin in BKK at around 6AM on Friday morning.

We wasted no time in securing a ride to the island of Koh Samet - a four hour journey by bus and ferry. This island is apparently less developed and crowded than the ones further South. Samet was a fantastic mix of white-sand beaches, warm waters, oceanside barbeques of fresh seafood, friendly people - many Thais with a number of Aussie and European backpackers, simple bungalows where one could fall asleep and wake up to the sound of gently crashing waves, short trails to hike over rocks and through dense trees to go between the aforementioned white-sand beaches, danceclubs playing current American club music, a bar with a Thai band covering current and classic American pop songs - including a surprisingly good rendition of Creedence's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain," and lots of Thai rum.

On Sunday, with a little saddness at leaving and a fresh leg wound from a particularly sharp rock, we caught a taxi from our beach to the ferry. And by taxi, I mean that we got in the back of a pickup truck retrofitted with steel ralings and bounced over the dirt trail across the island. After perusing shopfuls of every imaginable variety of dried fruit and dried seafood, we made our way back to Bangkok.

And it's quite a city. The size, distance between attractions, and number of freeways reminded me of Los Angeles. The fact that every second person I saw was wearing a yellow shirt in honor of the King (and they really do love the King) made me feel very foreign, indeed. We got settled in time to visit the Suan Lum night bazaar - complete with good food, better beer, more bands (singing Thai and American songs), and blocks of semi-permanent shopping stalls. It even has a ferris wheel. Then it was on to entertainment. Our first choice, the Thai Elvis, wasn't performing that night (neither was the Thai Thom Jones), so we hit up a blues bar called Tokyo Joe's. The music was great (even on amateur night), and it had a nice ambiance.

Monday was tourist day. But before that we met up with a family friend of mine, Kitty, from LA who just happened to be in Bangkok at the same time. She took Kevin and me to a nice lunch right on the river and pointed us in the direction of the Royal Grand Palace.

Which, it turns out, is connected to a temple called Wat Phra Kaew. Both were impressive. I was struck by the similarities between Thai and Hindu religious culture. Both have brightly colored temples with intricate carvings, similar iconography, and similar rituals. I learned that Buddhism reached Thailand from India and that it was an offshoot of Hinduism. But I was still surprised to see a mural of the Hindu epic story, the Ramayana, surrounding the central Thai temple (they call it the Ramakien, though). We visited two other temples, including one that housed a 150 foot-long gold statue of Buddha reclining. Recalling my own two days on the beach, I could identify with that one.