December 18 to 25, 2020
Population: 9.7 Million
We were meeting up with Monic and Dominique who were flying in from France. The perspective of travelling with them for 3 weeks made us look forward to heading to Bangkok.
The bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok took 11h30 hours, including a 20-minute break for lunch at 3pm. How can I put it? It was looooooong! But we made it (especially the girls). Left at 9am, arrived 8:30pm.
Guillaume, the brother of our good friend Julien, lives in Bangkok and kindly lent us his apartment while he was in vacation in France. When we got there, the place was huge and we each had our room and bathroom. Some privacy, yeah!!
Looking good! 😉
The girls had arrived in the morning and greeted us at the apartment, we were all very excited. They had brought some good stuff such as cheese, chocolates, candied chestnuts (typical in France during the holidays), foie gras, wine and champagne. Man, that was good after a quasi 100% Asian diet for 3 months! They also kindly brought some special orders we had, like books and sunglasses for the girls.
The district we were in, Sathon, had everything we needed: grocery stores, sky train station, malls (convenient for Christmas 😉) and hospitals.
Because the first visit I made the day after we arrived was to go to the Saint Louis hospital. Nothing to freak out about but I fell in the stairs in Pak Beng at night time and my right lower leg hurt and was bruised real bad. The service at the hospital was super efficient. From the check-in for international citizens, I was quickly sent to see a doctor who requested X-rays and sent me out after seeing the results with a anti-inflammatory spray. All in all, it took 30 minutes and I had my prescription filled before going home. I paid 50$ for everything and I will submit it to my insurance. Not bad, huh?
Well that’s Bangkok! After all these rural places we have been to, we absolutely felt in an urban and modern environment.
Over the first days, we explored our neighborhood - ate some Phat Si Ew, a pad thai with large clear noodles, had a drink at the Blue Parrot, and also found an indoor playground for kids.
Forest of Play
We stumbled upon it and spent 2 hours there because the girls could play with different things. Naema had fun making a shape with small pieces of wood, Lana was playing with the cranes, vehicles on the train tracks. All toys were made out of wood and some modules the kids could play in were out of cardboard and kraft paper.
They liked it so much (and us too… ahhh some quiet time 😜) that we went a 2nd time. The girls played with a local who spoke English.
History Bubble: Before it became the capital of Siam – as Thailand was then known – in 1782, the tiny settlement known as Bang Makok was merely a backwater village. Ayuthaya, 86km upriver served as the royal capital of Siam from 1350 to 1767. When the Burmese sacked Ayuthaya in 1767, Thonburi (on the opposite side of the river from Bangkok) was a logical choice for the new capital. In 1782, fearing Thonburi to be vulnerable to Burmese attack from the west, the Siamese capital was moved across the river to Bang Makok by king Chao Phraya Chakri. The succession of his son in 1809 established the present-day royal dynasty, and Chao Phraya Chakri was posthumously dubbed Rama I. (Source Lonely Planet Thailand)
Monic and Domi went to Ayuthaya but we didn’t, judging that we had put the girls through a lot of temples already. The site is immense with remnants of the former capital, but not always in good condition. The girls liked it including the train-riding experience.
Public transportation by boat on the main river is very common in Bangkok.
Wat Arun
We took a ferry to get to this exquisite temple made of ceramics. Its shape is very peculiar and different from what we had seen so far as you can appreciate on the pictures. I had to rent a shawl to put around my waist because my shorts were judged to be too short according to the guards. Some ladies need to cover their shoulders and chest if their outfit is judged too provocative.
In the temple, we were blessed by a monk for good luck by throwing water on our head 3 times and tying a yellow bracelet around our wrist. Everyone but Lana went for it.
Wat Pho
After Wat Arun, we took another boat to cross the river and go to Wat Pho, a 80,000 m2 Buddhist temple complex. There are several temples to visit on the site but the big highlight is a 151 ft-long reclined buddha lying down in a gigantic wat. There are lots of stupas (chedis) and galleries of Buddha sculptures. We could have spent a day there and took in as much as we could. We also attended a prayer ceremony with Buddhist monks. We were told we could not point our feet towards Buddha but to always keep them at an angle.
History Bubble: King Rama I augmented Bangkok’s natural canal and river system with hundreds of artificial waterways feeding into Thailand’s hydraulic lifeline, the broad Chao Phraya river. Rama I also ordered the construction of 10km of city walls and klongs (canals around the city) to create a royal ‘island’ – Ko Ratanakosin. The city soon became a regional centre for Chinese trading ships, slowly surpassing in importance even the British port of Singapore. (Source Lonely Planet Thailand)
Klongs
We saw our friends Rémi, Aline and Claire who had been travelling by bike for 2 months and whom we had met in Vientiane.
We rented a long-tail boat for a tour in the klongs (canals) around Bangkok. We left the boat to tour the Taling Chan floating market and got back on. And went around as if we were in Venice, seeing houses and temples, ladies hanging out their laundry, naked kids bathing in the water.
We caught up with the bikers who had explored the Gulf of Thailand shore and Ko Phayam in the Andaman sea. They were soon heading back to France: back to work for Claire and Rémi, back to school for Claire. We heard from them and they are already acclimatized and on the ski slopes.
Christmas
I cannot tell you how much the girls were waiting for Christmas! Lana was talking about it for weeks, and knew that Bangkok rhymed with Christmas… Naema was preparing menus, table name tags, table decorations. She even drew a Christmas tree and we put our shoes at the bottom of it so that Santa would know where to leave the presents. It was so cute!
We had agreed on a menu: starters would be foie gras, homemade nachos and quesadilla (by Naema), sausages and chips. The main dish was boiled shrimps and mayo. Dessert was an attempt of cake (made with approximate quantities) that revealed to be edible, with tropical fruits (papaya, dragonfruit, pineapple) and plenty of chocolates from France. We had a nice Chilean red wine picked by Domi to accompany the meal.
We had a great time!
The next morning, the girls came to wake us up at 8am super excited by all the presents that we all had gotten. They had counted the presents, total and per person. They had also sorted the presents. They were super patient to wait for Monic and Domi to wake up to finally be able to open the presents. They were spoiled!
Naema got a watch that she wanted so badly. Lana got a bride Barbie doll that she too wanted so badly. They also got bracelets, crafts, books, and stationery. We, as a family, got a ereader to lighten up our bags and save us from carrying 700 pager-books for Naema.
Bangkok can be overwhelming but we broke it down in smaller pieces. We did some of the touristy attractions but also enjoyed hanging out in our neighborhood and going to the pool/gym in the building. It was nice to stay for 7 solid days at the same place.
Having our friends was a breather. It was great to share some of our trips’ anecdotes, changing routines and catching up while discovering Bangkok together. It also allowed the girls to share their stories and learnings but also give them alternatives to Mom and Dad for play time, bath time and crossing-the-street time.
Coralie
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