Steve and Cathy's Blog

Today we have a morning excursion and, yes, we chose it primarily because it has a boat ride as a major segment. Our guide introduces herself as Ann, explaining that her real name is Siri Kul but we can call her Ann. As seems to be the pattern, she is lively, entertaining and possessed of wonderful people skills. Since our guides are very much the window through which we view a city or country, it is of immense value that they are as skilled as they are. Our stays are relatively short and we are on information overload, so how all of it is delivered and the welcoming attitude of our guides makes all the difference.

Today our excursion is Canals and Royal Barges. Because the ship is departing for Saigon at 2:00pm, we are on our way from the ship at 8:00. Ann explains the itinerary, and adds that before we board our boat for the canal tour, we have a chance to visit the “Happy Room” and go “Pee Pee.” This gives everybody a laugh, so we can tell this is going to be a fun morning. Our tour will last for almost five hours, and will be primarily by boat, with a bus delivering us from the ship to the dock and then back to the ship at the end. The boat will cruise the Chao Phraya River that is the principal waterway through Bangkok, then we will visit Wat Arun (aka the Temple of Dawn), followed by a cruise of a few of the many small klongs (canals) that radiate from the river to see what neighborhood life is like along these quiet waterways. We will then visit the Royal Barge Museum where the beautiful hand-made 40-70 foot royal barges are kept. We will finish our tour with a short shopping opportunity at a mall.

Ann gives us quite a bit of info worth inserting in this post, so here we go into Random Subject mode to record it:

• The Chao Phraya River is 360 kilometers in length, and begins in the north. Bangkok is 20 kilometers from the mouth of the river, which empties into the Gulf of Thailand. The name means “River of the Kings.”
• North of here along the river is Thailand’s ‘rice bowl.’ Our guide explains that jasmine rice is the more upscale (yes, upscale) rice and it is grown in this region.
• Bangkok is the 4^th capital of the country. Someday I will look up why they kept moving it, but war with Burma is the reason for at least one of the moves. Royal preference is probably another.
• Ann points out the hundreds of food street vendors we see long the way to the boat. “We eat all day here in Thailand. There are 1,000 7-11s in Thailand. When children are taught to count, most of the time they recite 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-11.”
• She points out a skyscraper that Cathy had noticed yesterday that has the most creative and bold architecture of any building in the city. Ann notes that people think it looks like it was made out of Legos. Here are three pictures of it. We think you’ll agree.

• King Rama IX died and there was a full year of mourning. King Rama X is now the reigning monarch, Ann says with great affection.  His picture is on the side of this building on the right in the left picture and on the left side of the right picture below:

• Ann mentions that she had studied English in school, of course, but adds: “I learned quite a bit of my English from watching CNN and Sex In The City.”
• When we arrive at Wat Arun, we see a couple of cats, which prompts Ann to explain: “We breed Siamese cats but send them all to the United States. We think Siamese cats are too snobbish. They think they’re too good to work and catch mice. We have Manx cats, because they catch mice!”
• March, April and May are school vacation months in Thailand because it’s too hot to go to school.
• The number 9 is a lucky number in Thailand.
• Scenes from the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun were shot in Bangkok. Not the movie itself; just scenery parts of the movie.
• As we pass by the large and beautiful railway station (pictured above on the right with the King’s Picture), Ann tells us that this was built by King Rama V. During his reign, which was during Britain’s Victorian period, this king spent considerable time in England. He became so enamored of things western that he adopted many of the western technological advances of the era, including railways and public water systems. Toward the end of his reign, in fact, he had Kings Avenue (one of the main boulevards in the city) built, despite the fact that there were only seven automobiles in the entire country.
• Bangkok was the city where SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) was headquartered. It was formed in 1955, and consisted of nine countries, only two of which were actually in Southeast Asia. It was a collective defense pact similar to NATO, but its military component never really got off the ground due to internal squabbling within the governments of some of the members, and the organization was abandoned in 1977. The United States financed 25% of its budget. When we were driving past its former headquarters, our guide made a remark that perfectly summed up the reason for its failure. “ SEATO is no longer in existence, because everyone knew that all it stood for was the Sitting, Eating And Talking Organization.”
• We heard no honking of horns in Bangkok. It is considered very bad manners and the offender would be considered rude and disrespectful.
• There is a hospital in Bangkok that is set up specifically to treat Buddhist monks. As monks are never to come in physical contact with women, the entire staff of the hospital must be male.

Okay, back to the boat. These are wooden boats, look to be of forty or fifty years old, are powered by substantial and loud diesel engines, and seat approximately forty people in rows of wooden benches. Ann has a public address system, but the roar of the diesel engine makes it hard to really get all that she’s saying. We ride upstream for about a half hour, and the river traffic is heavy – countless number of boats and barges at all different speeds heading in all different directions. The barges are huge and slow, some of the upscale tour boats must be 150 feet long, and the Longtails (see yesterday’s post for a description and pictures of these unusual, homegrown water taxis) are truckin’ up and down the river at 25-30 mph. There is a huge amount of chop, all created by the river traffic.

It’s a fun ride, though, and in about twenty minutes or so, we reach our first destination, Wat Arun, aka the Temple of Dawn. We disembark for Ann’s thirty-minute tour of this Buddhist complex. Lots of cats, we notice. Here are a few photos of what we see:

It’s back on the boat, this time for a tour of one of the canals where life takes a much, much slower pace that the river. The city is crisscrossed with these canals, all still very much in use. We slowly meander up, noting people doing their wash, boats of all descriptions docked on the sides, temples, schools, and boat stores. And houses, both rich and poor. We pass one particularly large house, and right next door is a small, ramshackle, sheet-metal roofed house. Ann notes that having rich and poor living next door to one another is quite common in Bangkok, especially on the canals. It is said that the people that live in the rich houses must have done something not so good. It is their karma to have to share space with the very poor.

One such boat store is selling bread to feed the fish, a type of catfish that looks to weigh about five pounds. Obviously, the fish hang out near this boat, and we have the opportunity to feed them. There are at least a hundred of these guys, and they are very eager to feed. It’s one of those times we really would like to have our grandchildren there with us (we feel that way a lot) because they would get as big a kick out of this activity as we did. Ann noted that there is much fishing in these canals, but that it is considered very ill mannered to fish near where these boats selling bread are tied up as the fish are always swarming around looking for food. It would not be a fair contest.

We come to a junction very near the boat store with the bread for the fish, and it is time to turn around. We reach the river in another fifteen minutes.   What a pleasant diversion, and the glimpse of life in this part of Bangkok is peaceful and interesting.

Our next stop is the Royal Barge Museum. This is where eight of the fifty-two handmade wooden barges that the Royal Family used have been on display since 1972. These boats are absolutely beautiful, with intricate decoration and high prows. They range in length from 95 to 145 feet in length and are about eight feet wide amidships. At one time, prior to other forms of transportation, the royal family made significant us of them. They are still used for very special ceremonies, which is not often. While the condition of the crafts is excellent, the biggest obstacle to their use is the training of enough oarsmen and officers to man the boats. The larger ones require over 50 oarsmen, all rowing in unison. I should have sprung for the $4 to be allowed to take photos, but I had a temporary bout of tightwad and didn’t. Here is one photo I took from outside the building.

Back to the boat landing and on to the bus. We have one more stop: a modern shopping mall specializing in jewelry. As our bus arrives and squeezes into a space with all the other tour buses, Ann explains: “We are at the place for shopping. Some of you that were on tour yesterday might have come here. I’m sorry, but this is where I must take you. I have no choices. Please don’t complain me.” We are not sure whether that means: “Don’t complain to me,” or “Don’t complain to the ship about me,” but we think it’s funny. Kind of like “I’m doing what they tell me. Don’t complain!”

It turns out that it is a different place than we were at yesterday, but it is all about gems and jewelry, which are not of any interest to us. However, we do find that once you work your way through the jewelry part, which is pretty extensive, the mall has a store with lotions and other skin care products. We are anxious to part with the rest of our 1,300 Thailand bahts (around $40), so we are pleased to find some presents for folks back home.

After our purchases, we join our friends Margie and Mary who are having a coffee and wait for the rest of the shoppers. On to the bus at 12:15pm. Ann gives us some great stories on our thirty-minute return to the ship. The driver has been notified of a big jam-up near the port and skillfully navigates us around the problem. Ann has a great finish to our tour as we near the ship: she sings the entire name of Bangkok, the Guinness Book holder of the longest name of any capital in the world.

We are home just before 1:00pm. It’s everyone on board by 1:30pm, as our ship is due to shove off at 2:00pm. We have a chance for a quick lunch. Now the entertaining departure procedure begins. The ship is headed upstream, and must be turned around to face toward the mouth of the river. But there is a bulk freighter being loaded from barges around 300 yards from Insignia in the middle of the river. Plus there are tricky currents to deal with and constant boat traffic. So two tugs tie on, one on each end. Both pull our ship sideways into the river channel. Then one pulls the bow out into the middle of the river, while the other nudges the stern around. It is an expert maneuver that these tugboat captains have no doubt accomplished many times. They make it look easy.

We head down the twenty kilometers of the Chao Phraya into the Gulf of Thailand. As we pass, we see factory after warehouse after container dock: the new Thailand. We pass under a high suspension bridge that symbolizes this economic power (the picture at the beginning of this post).

The rest of the afternoon is spent quietly, as we look forward to our dinner with Lou and Patricia. We met this couple when we had dinner with the captain. They were residents of Cherry Hill NJ but now make their home in Key West FL. Dinner is at 6:30pm in the Grand Dining Room, and it is as interesting and lively as was our previous dinner engagement.

Our visit to Thailand is complete, and we are way the better for it. The country is booming, the city of Bangkok is glorious, and the people are beautiful, handsome, peaceful and polite. It was a great experience being among them and we see a great future for this country.