Wrinkles of baggy clothes

Bangkok Trip(8-9 Aug 2007): Day 1

WAT BENCHAMABOPHIT

Golden Mount

TUK TUK

Buddha at Wat Indravihara

Swasdeeka !
Welcome to Thailand! Air hostes said...plane touched down at 10:45PM local time. Then it was 12:30am, i was still waiting in the 'on arrival visa' counter. Damn it! give me visa soon man! feeling very hungry, tired and sleepy. Reached hotel only by 1:30am, next comedy is where to get food now.... ho no.....just went roaming around in the streets, there I saw a small light blinking far off from a pull cart, see what it is ..... ha ha wow ... prata (Barotta), very suprising to see people selling prata. An Oasis in the desert yo! ate full, went to sleep.
Next morning after trying really really hard, got up early at 10am. My friends are coming only today evening hmm ..... have to roam around alone till then.... :-(.....Got a TUK TUK, thats how auto-rickshaw is called in Thailand, he asked me 200batt to see three places.Don't know whether its too much, but was very lazy to haggle or get another tuk tuk. So got in it and he took me to the first WAT ..... wondering WHAT is WAT? WAT is temple in Thai. Thailand has around 400 buddhist wats with buddha in sitting, standing or sleeping positions, even buddha himself would be suprised to see so many of his statues.
My first WAT was WAT INDRAVIHARA, this one had a big buddha staning like a gaint. I was like a david in front of this Goliath, with a camera in hand instead of a catapult to shoot him. Nice shot have a look....

Next destination was WAT BENCHAMABOPHIT, god knows how they pronuce these words. The went to the GOLDEN MOUNT, climbed and climbed to see a sitting buddha and a stupa.
After lunch, I lost my way....ha ha first day in bangkok is really getting interesting.... after some sign language with a TUK TUK driver manage to find my way to the hotel. In the evening when to Church of Rosary, closed, don't know what to do, got a TUK TUK and when to WAT TRAIMIT.

Did some foot massage in the evening for the first time, a bit painfull though, the thai women did it was very professional, she measured every muscle and nerve in my foot. After the massage, felt really good and relaxed. Atlast my friends arrived at around 1030 pm cursing the queue at the visa counter. It seemed they had a bigger queue... ha ha ... felt good :-)

Bangkok trip day 2

MITians in Grand Palace

Grand palace again.......


Grand palace again again......

The 120bhat photo

Wat Arun

Vimanmerk - Kings Mansion

With street sellers


Day-2 and last day in bangkok, had to cover some of the important places today with my friends. First one is the GRAND PALACE. This place is really a must see, rich in its ornamental beauty and the architecture, details, statues really amazing! We went around the palace with dropping jaws and blinking eyes partly because of the beauty of the palace and partly because of the good tourist figures ... :-)
Next WAT ARUN, a big comedy happened here. At the entrance of the WAT we saw a effigy painted like a traditional thai, with a hole at the head, so that we can insert ours and take a picture. Once we saw this we got very excited and all my friends popped their head inside the hole, i shot the picture. After everything, silently a women walked to us and asked us 120Batt......Oh my god! we didn't notice at the bottom of each effigy saying 40Batt...... take a look at this 120batt worth picture........ hehehe....
Wat Arun was also interesting, this is the only temple with a different type of architecture from the rest which were usually slanted brick roofed with chao fa ends. This one was GOPURAM(don't know how to say in english) type. It was huge and very steep to climb.
Then to VIMANMERK, a mansion where all the kings of thailand lived, it is the biggest wooden mension ever build in the world. Also interesting to see the riches of the king.
Bored by all the WATs, in the evening we went roaming around the streets. The streets were really bustling with tourists, road side shops selling souveniors and paintings, massage spas, pull carts selling local thai delicacies. Our bangkok trip came to a grand end with tranditional thai food and a snooker game.

Bangkok Clicks

Royal Missile to be launched - Wat Arun - My Best Click

Chotta buddhas of Bangkok

Steepy Wat Arun

Lazy Sleepy Buddha of Wat Pho

Foot prints of sleepy buddha

Blue buddha of Wat Benchamabophit

Wat Benchamabophit

Warriors of Grand Palace

Bangkok's most eligible bachelor visit Grand Palace (behind)

Vivid rich roofs of Grand Palace

Some more interesting photos >>>> http://picasaweb.google.com/kpraveenthomas/BangkokTrip02

Cambodia 10-11 August 2007

After a long taxi drive from Bangkok we reached Aranyaprathet, the border of thailand near to Cambodia. Had lunch, roamed around the market and ready to enter Cambodia.

Entrance to Cambodia

We entred Cambodia through Poi Pot, the on arrival visa costs USD20, but the immigration officers asked us USD25. Seems like corruption is a bit high here, hmm....fruit of underdevelopment, poverty etc. Then we took a taxi again to Siam Reap, the place where Angkor Wat is. The taxi driver can't understand even a word in english, so between us communication was through the universally accepted SIGN lauguage. Cambodians speak KHMER language.

Our taxi walla busy talking to his girlfriend

It was a 5 hour journey or i should say 5 hour rollercoaster ride, the road was very very bad and bumpy and our driver was cooly driving in 50-80 Kmph, we felt every part in our body shaking and whoobling. Along the way Cambodia, looked sometimes dry and sometimes paddy fields with cluster of huts around, other than that literally nothing was there along the way to Siam Reap.

Road not taken - Poi pot to Siam Reap

Relaxing on the way - Biggest tender coconut I ever had

But as soon as we entered Siam Reap, things were totally opposite. Good smooth road, big big buildings, shoping complexs, hotels all because of Ankor Wat. I was simply surprise to see that tourisim can change a place so much. In Siam Reap, the currency followed is USD instead of Cambodian Rial. No coins are accepted, if an item costs USD0.50, they won't accept 50cents, i have to pay USD1 and the remaining they pay in Cambodian Rial and that too to an approximate conversion value. The traffic system also follows US, driving on the right, but i saw trucks having stearings on left and cars having stearings on right. Oh! God every thing is in utter connppewson here.

TUK TUK here is like a chariot, instead of a horse a BAJAJ M80 gallops at the front

Got up early in the morning to visit the temples, the entry ticket is (USD 20) for a 1-day pass and they have 2-day (USD 40) as well as 3-day (USD 60) passes. Actually if you are a good photographer and a historian 3-day pass is worth buying. We planed to visit only the main temples due to shortage of time, the first one was ANGKOR Wat which was build in the 10th century AD by Suriyavarman II.

Angkor Wat - my camera is too small to capture the whole temple

Interesting, going through the history of Angkor, all the king names sound tamil and the major religion was Hinduism, until in the 14th century when Buddhism took over. Angkot Wat had a moat surrounding it and covered an area of i think 2-3Km from side to side. Lot of carvings mostly Apsaras (Cambodian dancing ladies) on the walls like this.....

Apsaras - Cambodian dancing ladies

Next we went to BAYON Wat, this one was also very interesting because it had a lot of faces made out of stone, build by Jayavarman VII, the one who ruled successfully and extended the teritories of the Khmer kingdom (now Cambodia) inside the Thailand and Vietnam. Took a lot of pictures here.

BAYON - The temple of faces

Evolution of human face from 10th to 20th century - a comparative study

Posing at Bayon

Gaints outside BAYON

Next is Preah Khan, this temple is maintained jointly with Indian Archeological department. There were a lot of lingas in this temple and most part of the temple was badly ruined. The next temple we went was Ta Prohm, again badly ruined.

Preah Khan - lingas - Lokeshwaran in a state of trance

Ta Prohm - damaged lingas

Next interesting destination was the floating village, USD40 for one hour boat ride was tooo tooo much. But the simple life style these people lead rised a lot of philosophy in my head. All the houses were foalting in the water.

Vege Vender on boat

These people don't change houses as we do, they move their houses where they want to.... see below.....

House moving

Floating snookers

In the evening we loitered around the Siam Reap to capture local life. Along the way, see here one guy is adverdising his TUK TUK......

All accepted but only if you take me home for free

and some were playing Cambodian music on the streets...............

Landmine victims performing Cambodian music

hmm.... Damn tired, we went a hotel to have trational Cambodian food and luckily that hotel also showed us free Cambodian traditional Apsara dance.

Yummy AMOK - a delicacy of Cambodia

Cambodian Apsara dance

Peocock Dance

End of the trip! back to home sweet home :-)

More pics taken in Cambodia>>>> http://picasaweb.google.com/kpraveenthomas/CambodiaAngkorTrip