The Free Land - Bangkok

My trip in Thailand was ended in Bangkok: The City of Angels.

I was really happy about my stay in the city because I got to stay in a really cool hostel called Lubd, which means "good sleep". The hostel was right under a BTS Station and it was across the street of MBK and in walking distance to Siam area.

The most fascinating thing about Bangkok is the transportation system.

Aside from the popular Tuk Tuk, which I somehow didn't really wanna get on because it was very touristic and it is basically robbing every tourist, they have the understandable and affordable BTS, MRT, and water transportation system.

Two pictures below are me on the BTS and Jo with a boat.

However, no matter how great the BTS, MRT, and water transportation system in Bangkok is, the roads are still stuck on daily basis: traffic jams. Plus the traffic jams happens in really odd hours, which is in the evening. I noticed that the traffic was fine in the morning. At 7-10 am (which is the range of time when people usually go to work) the traffic was enjoyable. But when it got closer to 5 pm the traffic started to build and it usually lasted up until 10pm. It's like no one actually got up to work, but everyone is going home.

Later, thanks to my friend Samuel, who met this random person who understands about Bangkok's transportation, I found out that tourists are the main users of BTS and MRT. Most of Thai people use their own car, or maybe bus.

So anyway, Jo and I took the boat to visit some places.

The picture below is a temple called Wat Arun.

"wat" actually means temple in Thai.

Wat Arun is in fact my most favorite temple among many other temples that I visited in Thailand. I think it's because most of the temples are dominated with the color gold with a lot of Chinese influence in it. As I am not a big fan of the color gold or the somehow Chinese influence architecture or decoration, I wasn't that impressed by any other temples as I was impressed by Wat Arun.

Although most of Wat Arun's decoration was made out of ceramic and porcelain from China, it just gave me a different feeling. It was pretty impressive.

No wonder I took tons of pictures in this temple.

The picture above was a scenery taken from (almost) the top of Wat Arun.

(There was actually a higher spot than where I took the picture, but it was off limit for tourists)

Yes. in Wat Arun, we could climb the stairs and see a really nice scenery of Chao Phraya River.

Grand Palace is actually in the far distance of this picture.

So, the picture below is the Grand Palace.

A very crowded and touristic place.

When I was there, the sun was shining like it was the last day of earth. it was damn hot.

The gold color actually hurt my eyes.

My most favorite picture-taken spot in the Grand Palace complex was on the picture below.

It was actually a replica of Angkor Wat.

One funny thing was when my dad asked me where I have been in Bangkok, he asked whether I went to Angkor Wat or not. He had no clue that the real Angkor Wat is actually in Cambodia.

So, one of the most important thing that I did when I was in Thailand was eating. LOL

It is funny because I don't really eat street food or food from a traditional market in Indonesia.

Despite the pretty similar unhygienic way of cooking, I eat street/market food in Thailand anyway.

And below is my typical lunch, when I was in Thailand.

Papaya salad was almost always there, in almost every meal that I had. and I basically had tons of chicken cooked into something. It is simply because Thai people don't eat beef (they actually consider cow sacred, much like Balinese) and I don't eat pork (which I felt like their main meat).

The unusual thing that I found in Thai way of eating is that they eat a lot of sticky rice.

They eat sticky rice at lunch, at dinner, with mango, with milk, with coconut milk, with almost everything.

(They don't eat sticky rice with durian and fried banana, though, it is still only the Sumatran's way of eating, and I am so proud of it. LOL)

So, when I went to Bangkok, my extended family was basically freaking out. They all thought my parents were crazy to let me go there alone.

No one is over the latest Thailand's political drama. When people got shot, tourists got stranded in the airport, and mall got bombed.

Below is the picture of Central World. A mall intended to be the biggest shopping mall in Thailand which got bombed a few months ago.

You can't really see the damages now, because they are starting to build it back up again.

Jo was surprised that I was really interested in the bombing site and everything. She was a bit shock when I started taking pictures.

Well, I guess it was because I wasn't near the bombing sites when there was a riot in 1998 in Indonesia.

One part of my Bangkok Trip was going to Ayutthaya.

Ayutthaya was basically an old city where the Thailand's capital was, back in the old days.

On the streets of Ayutthaya I saw the reminds of old temples, kept for the sake of history.

One of the most interesting things I saw in Ayutthaya was in the picture below.

It was a Buddha head caught in the roots of a bodhi tree. Pretty amazing, if you asked me. Plus the tree is growing every year, so there's a slight possibilities that in several years ahead, the Buddha head will be on the same level as the human's average height, which is extremely cool.

Below are the pictures of the temples that I went in Ayutthaya area.

From this visit, I understood that Thai people didn't always care about their tourism/historical sites. There were times when people actually came to the old temples, stole something, and sold it as an antique. Besides, they were robbed by the Burmese pretty bad.

So, basically on the picture below, the damages on the temples, including the headless Buddha was because of the old-ignorance way of living.

After visiting the temples in Ayutthaya, I can only say one two things:

1. Borobudur is a million times better!

2. Thai people, which are mostly Buddhist, SHOULD come to Borobudur!

Now that I think of it, I didn't take that many pictures in Bangkok.

Aside because I travel mostly alone (Jo only came for one day, more or less), I actually just went on a lot of walking and enjoying the city.

I didn't even buy that many stuff on my shopping day in Chatuchak weekend market.

My over all visit to Thailand was really fun.

I wouldn't reject another invitation for another visit to the country.

plus, special thanks to Jo Chawandit and her family to help me in many ways.

Too bad I haven't met the complete member of the family.

Can't wait for another visit on getting to know the family!