March 27, 2015, Friday, Bangkok

We sailed into Bangkok Harbor all morning long it seemed.  The channel winding into the city passes under several beautiful bridges.  We arrived  at 11:00 am.  A Princess ship had to dock so far away it was a 2 hour drive to town.  We had only 45 minutes to town, the advantage of a smaller ship I think.

At 10:00am I participated in the shipboard golf putting contest.  There are 9 short holes on the 11th deck, aft.  About a dozen people tried for Big O Points.  I had the highest score!  A 19 took first place.

I was able to book the excursion that went to the flower market.  

There are maybe 30 people on the bus.  It was hard to keep up with the guide, to hear her commentary, and to find out which way to go.  I ended up following other European looking tourists several times because everywhere was crowded and I didn't recognize all the Insignia passengers yet. We drove through the Chinese section of Bangkok.  The guide said Chinese love gold. 

 They like it 18 K or mostly 24K.  There was shop front after shop front displaying hanging chains and chains of gold.  The wall was gold color.  Chinese writing and architecture along the way.  

busy street

Then we went to the Pak Klong Talad flower market which is along the canal. 

 Aisle after aisle of beautiful orange marigolds,  bags of petals, strings of flower heads. 

 They are used in offerings for worship and other occasions such as weddings and parties like ours tonight.  I could not see how they could possibly sell all these flowers before they faded. 

 Some booths were stringing the flowers in loops or decorating cones.  Behind the street vendors were indoor shops with refrigeration.  The lotus blossom is the special flower in Thailand.  They are large bud shaped flowers the size of tennis balls.  In India, the orange marigold is the special flower.   

Along the way the market became a vegetable market.  Then we crossed the street and saw the orchid market and more flowers.  

Then we took a tuk tuk ride to the Wat Po to see the reclining Buddha.  I got to share one with Kay, the woman who won Bingo the other day.  This temple complex was vast.  

It houses 872 golden buddha statues, many temple like structures, smaller surrounding larger.  There is a monastery there.  There might have been a Thai massage school as well.  

detailed temple spires

We took off our shoes, put them in the bag provided, and paraded around the reclining Buddha.  He was maybe 30 feet tall and 90 feet long, all gold colored.  At the base were stations where people put flowers like we saw at the market.  You could buy 108 small coins and put them in 108 small dishes and make 108 wishes here.  We had free time to visit other areas.  I discovered more of the gold buddhas, stations that described the complex that had some text in English, an area with drawings of the body with various points used in acupuncture, and some imposing statues of pretty scary, amuzing dieties. 

I was there photo

very long

the detailed feet

a tired tourist

very sparkly decoration.  I guess I was color coordinated

these guys were amusing

massage school diagrams of acupuncture points

sweet little statues among the imposing ones.

Our guide gave us water before proceeding.  It was 91 degrees and 96% humidity.

Our next stop on the bus was to the Gems Gallery.  This is the largest jewelry store I have ever seen.  Several other tour busses were there.  It was super crowded.  The first room had jewelers at work polishing stones, crafting ring settings, etc.  It required very precise specialized tools.  The showroom went on and on.  I asked if they had any opal.  They had three opal rings.  The opals were bigger than a pea, and had diamonds on each side.  The price was about $3,000.00.  I didn't check the prices of anything else, but I could have had a choice of about 6 display cases of ruby jewelry, 8 of emerald, etc.  In the next room they had bolts and bolts of silk in all different shades.  They had purses made out of crocodile skin, and some very shiny sparkly bags made out of stiingray skin.  I think a bag was about $300.00 or so.

I was fortunate to meet a couple, Gerry and Sue who were also going to the Thai Extravaganza tonight.  This is one of our exclusive world cruiser events.  So I went with them to the Peninsula Hotel directly instead of back to the ship.  They provided a van for us from the Gems Gallery.  It was Friday night traffic and it took us about 50 minutes, but we still had time for a cocktail or two in the lounge overlooking the river before everyone arrived from the ship.

There was a beautiful reception area on the lawn for us with canapes and drinks.  The guava juice was delicious.  We met several other world cruisers.  Then we went inside to the ballroom where we had a delicious Thai dinner.  It started out with a bang when I ate the little red center of the flower made from pineapple.  It burned almost the whole evening.  Thai musicians played for us throughout the dinner.  They used traditional string, drum and xylophone type 

We also were entertained by beautiful women Thai dancers.  They had elaborate silk costumes with gold jewelry and decorations.  The movements were small but graceful.  Mainly it had to do with the hands which could be bent back from the wrist into graceful curving lines and then twisted.  They have to keep stretching the hands when very young to be able to form these graceful curves with the hands.

The music was frankly very loud which made conversation difficult.  We sat with our trivia team, amnesiacs, Barbara and Dennis, Bodo and Maria, and Alan and Becky.  

After dinner we watched a spectacular fireworks display right outside the lobby coming from the river.  The lights reflected on the buildings across the way.  I don't know if this display was only for us or not, but it put us all in a festive mood for the rest of the cruise.