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Bangkok, Thailand
13° 45' N 100° 31' E
Mar 10, 2006 08:03
Distance 415km

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Other entries in Bangkok

Pink Floyd: Home, Home again the (glass) wall

Text written in: English

So the title really shouldn't have anything to do with Pink floyd, but the first phrase is a line from a pink floyd song that I was reminded of when I decided to write a blog about seeing my parents in Bangkok and the phrase "glass wall" has to do with a metaphor that I came up with about visiting thailand, but it also has to do with pink floyd because that is the title of their famous album: the wall. So now you see the method to the madness.

Well it was absolutely fantastic to see my parents because I missed them very much and because they are the best kind of comfort you can have when you are feeling lonely or missing home. Seeing them is like watching a cowboys game, good texas bbq, american english, ketchup, apple pie, and everything else nice about america rolled into one nice reminder. Not that my parents are like typical americans, but simply that they are home. It was also fantastic to see my aunt and uncle as well, more texans (from austin) who are great people to travel with as they are very open to new things. Anyway, the other nice thing about seeing my parents is that they do things a little bit differently than Noah and I. If they want to take a tour of the famous wats in Bangkok, then they have the hotel arrange a car, a tour guide, and a convenient pick up time. They do things the easy way and they get the most information because of it, which is not exactly the same experience as being a dirty, poor backpacker, but is a very nice respite from haggle, hassle, bustle, and push. So for the past two days I just relaxed and let them take care of almost everything.

The first thing that we did was take a boat tour of the city. This was fun because its a different way to see the city. Bangkok is practically split in the middle by the huge CHao praya river and bisected in various ways by different canals, so we saw parts of bangkok only visible from the water: for example the back of people's houses, which was cool because we saw how the river was a daily part of these people's lives: they bathe in it, play in it, fish in it, and live on top of it. We also saw a snake preserve, which had a sort of depressing zoo, with huge crocs, tigers, bears, and monkeys. You could feed the monkeys which was fun and funny especially as the monkeys are very sloppy eaters; they literally were throwing the food into their mouths. we also saw a snake show which involved thai men inciting live cobras and vipers to bite them, kind of scary. All in all nice to see animals but predictably part of the great thai network of tourist traps: my mom bought a picture of me on a plate with the name of the snake farm on it. I had to laugh.

 

After that we searched for a museum about some guy I had never heard of (jim thomson) who supposedly reinvigorated thai silk inthe 50's, but the museum was closed: so we decided to find some dinner. To get dinner we decided to go to siam square (the shopping district), but we only found a tuk tuk driver who would take us (tuk tuks only hold 3 people and we were 5) there, after squeezing too many people into this tiny vehicle, the driver convinced us to go to a restaurant he recommended for cheaper. As it turns out this restaurant was further away from our original destination, but we were charged less for it (go figure). Dinner was actually pretty good so we were satisfied to go home after that. That evening the adults had already arranged for themselves to have thai massages so I joined in and had one too. It was ok, I guess im not a massage person. Also whenever someone touches the outside of my thigh, I cant help laughing and tensing up, so I think that kind of ruined the massage.

 

The next day we had a guided tour to the major wats and the grand palaces of Bangkok. INCREDIBLE and beautiful. These places are ornate, huge, and you can feel their spirituality. Too much to really describe here, suffice to say I have now seen all different kinds of Buddhas. One very interesting fact is that many public buddha shrines are gold on the outside because a traditional offering is to rub gold leaf on the buddha statue. When enough people do it, the entire statue is now covered in gold. Also we saw a monk's ordination ceremony, which seemed very nice. As it turns out about 50 percent of thai young men study in a monastary at one point in their life.... thats a religious culture! Anyway, ill have to put my pictures up to communicate just a bit of how this was, but it was great.

In the evening, we went to Siam Nirimiat, a tourist dance show. We were hoping for a dance that showed traditional dances, but were a little dissapointed to recieve only a stylized version of Thai history: "the disney version" as my dad put it. I was actually satisfied with the experience though as there was a great buffet beforehand and elephants on stage and then in the courtyard afterward; and you could feed the elephants bananas. Elephants eat whole bananas so its easy to feed them, they just grab the bananas out of your hand with their trunk and stuff it into their mouth, then when all you are left with is banana stalks, the elephants eat that too.

As we rode home, we discussed what i called the glass wall effect of thai tourism. I believe that in places, like Thailand, Peru, Costa Rica, or even NYC where the  tourism industry is a well developed giant, you get a glass wall effect: that is there is a wall that seperates foreigners from natives. You get to look in, people will explain to you what is going on, and you arent really barred from seeing anything, but you never get the full experience. Its like visiting a museum, you can see an egyptian pot close up, but you dont get to use the pot or put it on a fire. Just like in Thailand you see buddhism, the temples, the culture, the animals, the nature, the beauty, the rituals, but you aren't let in to take part in these things in a more concrete way. In argentina, people wanted to take you to eat where they eat or show the places they go at night, same in Australia, but here there is a divide between a vision of real life and the life of the tourists. I will grant that there are certain circumstances which create this problem, serious language divide (thai script is totally different from roman letters) the fact that tourists have comparatively a lot of money, and other things, but its just an interesting phenomenon which i have noticed. For better or for worse, I think I am at the Bangkok museum and not actually in bangkok. I cant complain though because its pretty different here, and who knows? maybee the bangkok museum is part of what bangkok is.