Savannah in Thailand (March 16 - 21)

On Wednesday, March 16^th, we arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, and went to our hotel, were we spent the afternoon before going to the Patpong Night Market. At the night market, they had a lot of things with elephants on them, (coin purses, bags, things to hang on the wall, jewelry.) and we later realized that they are very big on them in Thailand. The market is known for their fake designer stuff. They also had the usual tourist things, t-shirts, bags, soccer jerseys, magic tricks, and lights. I got some lights for my room and a purple cookie monster shirt, and Jackson got some magic tricks. Bangkok reminds us of Hong Kong, and it has a lot of familiar fast food like KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W, and McDonalds, and it even has Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme! After dinner, we went home.

For breakfast Jackson and I got a Dunkin Donut! After breakfast, we took a taxi to the Grand Palace. The Grand Palace is on the Chao Praya River. It was really ornate and very beautiful. The king does not live in the Palace, but they do still have ceremonies there. One of the temples we went in (Wat Pra Kaew) had the Emerald Buddha and is considered the most important temple in Thailand. The Emerald Buddha is actually made of jade, but when it was discovered in the early 1400’s, it was mistaken for emerald. No one knows when or where it was made, because it was discovered already carved in the early 1400’s.  It wasn’t discovered in its emerald (really jade) form, but covered in plaster, but it was chipped away at the nose, and someone chipped the rest away, and that’s how they discovered that it was made of a block of emerald. (Or so they thought) The Buddha has three different outfits, one for winter, summer, and the rainy season. When it comes time to change the outfit, there is a ceremony where the King climbs up a ladder and changes the outfit.

Emerald Buddha

After the Grand Palace we walked to Wat Po, which was not far from the Palace. There is a HUMUNGOUS reclining Buddha. It’s about thirty five meters long!  We knew it would be big, but we had no idea how big it would really be!

Jackson & Savannah at the head of the recining Buddha

Reclining Buddha

Nest, we took a very short boat ride across the river to the Wat Arun (The Temple of the Dawn) Outside of Wat Arun, there was a small craft market, where we purchased three small paintings for our new house. One of the paintings is an original oil painting of a floating market, and the other two are oil rubbings from the Temple of Wat Arun, one with three female musicians and one with three male musicians. 

Designs of Wat Arun

Close up of design

 We took the boat back across the river after the market. On the other side of the river there were some more shops and I got a purple bag with elephants on it, and a teak carving of two elephants. My parents brought two large teak carvings.

We then took a taxi back to the hotel, where we had late lunch/dinner, before going to the Thailand Cultural Centre. To get there, we took the hotel’s tuk tuk (a motorbike with one or two back rows of seats added) to the subway station.  We arrived at the Thailand Cultural Centre and got to feed an elephant. We fed the elephant really hard bamboo, and I was surprised he could eat it! It was an Asian elephant, and after seeing the African elephants in South Africa, we could really see the difference. They had a mini village with houses from all over Thailand that you could walk through. We looked at all of the houses, took a short boat ride, and saw some Thai people making things in the different houses. One woman made Jackson and I luck bracelets. She tied some white string around our wrists (left wrist for girls, right for boys) while chanting in Thai. There was also a man with shadow puppets, and he gave us a short show with a girl and a donkey puppet, and it was very funny, especially when the girl said “you’re just a stinkin’ marionette!”. The other person was someone making animals out of bamboo. She was really nice, and even gave Jackson and me a little angel fish each.

Savannah feeding bamboo to an elephant

Savannah getting lucky bracelet

After the village, we went to see the Siam Niramit show. The stage show was AMAZING!!!!!!! The stage is actually in the Guinness Book of World Records for being tall. There are many structures like houses and boats that move, there is real water at the front of the stage, it rains real water, in the rice paddy scene the rice “grows”, the thunder and lightning is so real it’s scary, and much, much, more! The costumes were beautiful! The show itself was great too! The show was all about different parts and places in Thailand, such as in the rice fields, by the sea, different markets, celebrations, etc. My favorite scene was in the ocean, where it’s really dark but they painted the fish and the reef in glow-in-the-dark paint. The reefs are already there but people dressed in black come out holding sticks attached to the fish and dance around peacefully with them. In the middle there is a giant oyster shell, and a guy attached to ropes in the ceiling comes swimming down, (it actually looks like he’s swimming) opens the shell, takes out a huge glowing “pearl”, and kicks of the shell to swim back up. There is one part of the show that is really scary, which is the hell scene, and it tells you all the consequences you will suffer in the afterlife if you do certain things in your life. (Such as: drink alcohol – drink boiling water, tell lies – have your tongue ripped out, etc.) Overall it was a great night!

Jackson & Savannah after the show

Today we have a guide named Mr. A that took us around in his taxi. First went to the Floating Market. When we got there, we took a half hour boat ride around it. In the water there were lots of boats like ours (no engine) but there were also some with an engine. All around us, in and out of the water, there were women selling things. In the water they sold things like, hats, bags, fruit, hot food, (we tried some coconut pancakes – really good!) and a lot more. There were quite a few tourist boats like ours. On the sides of the water, there were actual stores where the owners used long poles with hooks on them to attach to boats and pull them in. we got pulled in once or twice. They would sell more gift shop like things, bags, t-shirts, hammocks, house decorations, etc.

Floating Market

Coconut Pancake Lady - Delicious!

Lady Seling flowers and fruit

Floating Market

At the next place we went to we got to do an elephant ride! It was AWESOME!!!!! Mom and I were behind Dad and Jack on an elephant named Catnoon. The person leading the elephant sat up front, and mom and I sat behind on a seat. We walked through lots of trees and green, and even through water and next to a few houses! Afterwards, we walked over to see the other elephants. They are so cute!

Elephants can swim!

Savannah & Anne back on land

Savannah & her favorite animal

The next stop was a furniture store. Before seeing the furniture we got to watch the artists doing the carvings on the furniture. Some pieces can take up to a year to carve.  All of the furniture was so ornate with carvings of flowers and elephants and people and more! They were all very beautiful pieces. We bought a fold up bar for Daddy.

Carving for a table (very detailed!)

After the furniture store, we went to see the ruins of Ayutthaya.  From 1350 – 1750, Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam.  The Burmese invaded in 1767 and cut off the heads of most of the Buddhas!  Most of the headless Buddhas are still there. It was a beautiful place and is also a World Heritage Site.

Golden Buddha

Headless Buddhas

Tree growing around Buddha head

Ayutthuha

Dressed for a ceramony

Row of Buddhas

Paul, Jackson & Savannah exploring Ayutthuha

Today we went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market. First, we took the tuk tuk to the subway station again, and then we took the subway to the Chatuchak Weekend Market. At the market there are 10,000 stalls, so obviously we didn’t have time for all of it! We were there for three hours. First we saw some clothes, jewelry, fabric, and scarves. They were all very pretty! The designs on the clothes and fabric were very nice. In the animals section they had the usual – puppies, kittens, hamsters, mice, but they also had adorable baby squirrels and little clothes for them! The squirrels were tiny and we didn’t like the way they were treating them.  They were tied so tight on leashes they couldn’t move.

After we were done looking around, we all tried different ice cream. We had frozen coke popsicles, coconut ice cream, and some frozen yogurt inside a small balloon, as it melts, the ice cream comes out of the balloon opening.  They were all really good!

Frozen Yogurt in a balloon!  (Jackson's exploded on Mommy)

After the market, we hung out until dinner. For dinner we went to an organic Thai restaurant and had noodles with chicken, red curry, spare ribs, jasmine rice, pork satay, and prawn toast.

We left on March 21. I loved every second of Bangkok, and I am disappointed that we are now leaving Asia L.