Around the World in 87 Days: Week 1

So, I left Louisiana on a Wednesday afternoon and arrived in Bangkok on Friday morning. My guide was waiting for me and took me to my hotel. I only had to wait about an hour for my room to be ready, which was very nice because even though check-in time was 2pm, I was able to get in the room at about 10am. I spent the first day relaxing and recovering from the long trip.

I planned on exploring parts of Bangkok on my own the following two days; however, I don't know if it was something that I ate or drank, but I was unable to be more than 50 feet from a toilet.

Eventually, my body recovered and just in time for the official start of the tour I am on. Our first stop was the Royal Palace, which is a complex of temples and buildings and statues. I have a little bit of a hard time understanding my guide who doesn't have the best English and repeats everything he's said, whether I understand what he's saying or not...

One of the first things we saw was the Emerald Buddha, which was a small jade Buddha. The language issues began as my guide told me that years ago the emerald Buddha used to be covered in seamen, but that one day lightning struck the Buddha's shoulder, knocking off some of the seamen, exposing the jade underneath. It wasn't until later in the day that I realized he meant to say "cement".

We continued our tour of the Palace, and were lucky to be just in time for the changing of the guard! Then we went to the temple where the reclining Buddha is housed. It was massive!

Then lunch, and then we stopped at the Jim Thompson house museum. After that I had a lovely two hour massage for next to nothing, and then it was back to the hotel for a little downtime before dinner.

The following day, we took a longboat all along the river and through small canals. It was great to see the old style houses along the water! We stopped at the temple of dawn, which is one of the oldest temples in Bangkok. After a delicious lunch, we continued our tour by visiting a private home that has been turned into a museum called the Prasart Museum, named after the owner (who I got to meet!). It was extremely impressive and the collection included antiques from Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and China. It really was an impressive collection!

We braved traffic back to the hotel for some downtime before dinner, which was another delicious meal! Tomorrow we leave Bangkok for the northeast of Thailand!