02-03-2009

There is an extremely large quantity of markets in Bangkok; it seems like I spent HALF OF MY TIME there going through markets. Thursday night, Friday, and Sunday were mostly spent at markets. There were even markets that we did not go to. It was at these markets that I made my first purchase since coming to Singapore, and also what I hope to be my last; I do not like buying things. Here is a street market:


There was the Night Bizarre which was two blocks of conjoined shops; I estimate one hundred different shops, each privately owned. It was only open at night, 10:30 to 12, thus the name. It was at this market that I purchased my green silk boxers with elephants. We left the Night Bizarre in a tuk tuk.

I will now talk about the tuk tuks. Bangkok is full of taxis, and it is full of tuk tuks. A tuk tuk is basically the front of a motorcycle attached to a two wheeled cart, it looks like this:


A tuk tuk can seat three comfortably, but we loaded on five. For shorter distances tuk tuks are cheaper than taxis, but get more expensive as the distance increases because they are relatively very slow. One of our taxi drivers went up to 140 km/h; I believe the tuk tuk maxes out at about 30 mph, note the variety of units.

Saturday we went to the temples. To get to the temples we took a fun long-tail boat ride down the Chao Phraya River. There are many temples in Bangkok, MOSTLY BUDDHIST. Some of these temples were incredibly impressive in detail, while others were only impressive. Locals got in for free while every one else HAD TO PAY. There was a recurring theme throughout the trip of only foreigners being required to pay for things. I don't quite understand why they need so many temples, I would just make one nice large one and have done with it. Here is the inside of a temple, featuring the very prosperous Buddha:


Here is the outside of a Buddhist temple:


Some of the temples had "sacred relics" of long dead Buddhist saints. These relics appeared to be little rocks and gems encased in fancy jewelry boxes, but were supposedly actual remnants of the Saints' bodies.

Besides the silk boxers I also purchased a cool pair of lightweight pants which I wore to the temples because shorts were not allowed.