Bangkok - Round 2

Bangkok is a very big city, and very hard to get a sense of. After saying goodbye to Hen and Zoe we took a bus to a town called Surat Thani (not sure of the spelling) and then the overnight train to Bangkok. The kids were very excited about a sleeper car and we were able to get first-class tickets so they were not disappointed. They took over the top berth, watched a movie and fell asleep very quickly. Philip and I had a slightly harder time falling asleep but in the end didn't do too badly. At about 6am the conductor knocked on the door and we arrived in Bangkok before 7.
Our hotel in Bangkok was very nice. It was quite an unusual hotel, a very "zen" oasis in the middle of the chaos. The location was perfect, near the river and an easy walk to restaurants.
We spent the first day on tuktuk tour of the city - there was a special deal that day that if you visited a "factory" you got a $.35 ride. So, we visited a few temples and a few factories. It would have been awful if we hadn't understood the trade, but participating in the "scam" made it work quite well.
Our second day we were able to witness something quite special - a royal barge procession in honor of the King's 80th birthday. Along with hundreds of Thai people we crowded on to one of the piers and waited for all of the barges to go by. They were spectacular, filled with people dressed in ceremonial clothes from different eras in Thai history. One of them contained the Prince (the King was in the hospital), but we couldn't figure out which one. All in all a splendid view. We also visited the Jim Thompson museum which was very interesting. He was an American OSS guy who stayed in Thailand after the war and is credited with revitalizing the Thai silk industry. His house is an ecclectic mix of Thai and western and both PHilip and I would have been quite happy to call it our own! He mysteriously disappeared in Malaysia in the late 60's so his house was turned into a museum. If you're in Bangkok, we highly recommend a visit.
We also did a day trip to the floating market (a bit bigger than the one boat market we experienced with Henrietta!) and the bridge over the River Kwai. The floating market was interesting, a bit of tourist trap but fun all the same. The Kwai trip was the more interesting part of the day. The museum there was surprisingly bad, lots of interesting things but they were badly displayed and there was almost no information about them. The better
parts were walking across the bridge (a version of the second one built by prisonersand still in use today) and then visitng the cemetary. The cemetary was very
moving, both Philip and I got quite teary seeing the rows of gravestones for the prisioners who died there. While much smaller than Normandy, there is similarity to the feelings it evokes.

Our last day in Bangkok was spent visiting the big sights: The Grand Palace and some of the most famous Wats. The Grand Palace and Wat Pho were quite something -- there is no inclination for understatement to be found anywhere! Everywhere you look there is something spectacular, in fact there is so much to see you almost don't know where to look. At first it just seemed too over the top, but afer an hour or two I really started to appreciate the desire to honor Buddah in the biggest way possible and I really enjoyed it.
Next stop Chiang Mai via another overnight train. We are all looking forward to a slighly slower pace. In the end both Philip and I are very glad we got to visit Bangkok, but we didn't fall in love with it. It has amazing things to see and do, great food and very friendly people but it's hard to get to know in a few days. I suspect we'll be back for at least for a day on our way down to Singapore so we'll see if familiarity breeds more affection.