Bangkok Blues

We arrived in Bangkok, Thailand to find that it is 1,000 degrees, the Tuk Tuks are so uncomfortable that your bottom is bruised after the first ride and …did I mention that it is hotter than the surface of the sun? Our first day here was as disaster in every sense of the word. We decided to start with a set of scavenges in Ayutthaya (a town north of Bangkok) and ended up blowing our whole first day in Thailand there. Everything that could go wrong, did. We made good points but every point was hard to come by.

Problem # 1: Bad transportation:
The competition required that we take a train at least one way –either to or from – Ayutthaya. We quickly learned that the right option was to take the express, air conditioned train up there and get a taxi back. Poor planning on our part had us in a taxi on the way up which meant that we had to train it back. But then we missed the mid-afternoon train and had to take the 6:05PM train – which did not arrive until almost 7 PM. That train had no air conditioning or open seats (it was standing room only – and by that I mean that every part of you was touching someone else), a strong smell of urine and it stopped at approximately 79 towns on the way back. It took almost 3 hours to get to Bangkok - by which time I had a raging case of heat stroke. I came very close to throwing up on the train but we were jammed in so tight that I would have up-chucked down some unsuspecting Thai person’s back (a thought too gross to permit).

Then in Ayutthaya – in a stroke of real stupidity – they developed a type of Tuk Tuk that is built for short 7 year olds: a low ceiling which makes you hunch over the whole time and you ride sideways (not facing forward) which really limits how much air you get. They are HOT and incredibly uncomfortable. Riding in these torture chambers for hours left me literally crippled up.

But there were some highlights

Scavenge # 1: Sam Po visited Ayutthaya in 1407. He has another famous name, what was it? And visit something that is associated with him here.
The Wat Phanan Choeng temple has a HUGE Buddha dedicated to Zheng He (a big time, Marco-Polo-type Chinese explorer). It sort of takes your breath away because you turn a corner and there it is – huge and gold.

Scavenge # 2: Take an elephant ride around Wat Phra Si Sanphet
You have to get on the back of an elephant (under a very colorful umbrella) and lumber through the temple grounds. Ben was tickled by the whole ride-an-elephant thing.

Scavenge # 3: Buy something interesting from Bang Sai Royal Folk Arts & Crafts Center for under $10.
While looks like it is around the block from Ayutthaya, this place is actually a VERY LONG 45 minutes bone-crunching Tuk Tuk ride away (did I bitch about the Thai Tuk Tuks already???). I was hot, sweaty and very bad-tempered by the time we got there. It is a government sponsored trade school center that trains poor and disabled people in various craft fields. This guy makes stain glass windows with no right arm at all (and his prosthesis is literally falling apart at the seams) and only a single finger along with a mangled hand on the left. OK, that alone put my heat exhaustion misery into perspective and made me feel petty for complaining. A clear reality check.

Observation #1: The Thai people are kind and sweet – with big, warm smiles. When Nanny and Ben got stuck at a temple at closing time – and could not find any transportation back to the train station – the woman who ran the ticket booth took care of them and got her brother to give them a ride. Amusingly, his only mode of transportation was a motorcycle. So Nanny, Ben and the unknown Thai boy (with a ruby in his front tooth) raced through town crammed together on a motorbike – quite a spectacle.

Observation #2: There were no benches on one side of the train station so everyone waits for the train by sitting on the train tracks with trains going by literally within feet of you….Definitely in violation of every safety regulation.

I am hoping for a better day tomorrow… our first day here was largely a bust – and I feel sick and grumpy.

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