# 046 Bangkok and Bengaluru

It was a rich experience visiting Bangkok.

The country is rich in culture though not to our Indian level.

People are very courteous to a fault and very helpful. The driver of the taxi I engaged went out of the way to help me find places and didn’t expect any tips at the end of a very long and tiring day when he dropped me at the Swarnaboomi Airport (note the name is Samskrit).

Places I visited are:

3 famous Buddha temples – Golden Budhha (700 years old, 12x16 feet high pure gold idol weighing 55 tonnes), Emerald Buddha inside the Palace and the Reclining Buddha. The golden idol was covered with plaster to save it from invaders and found to be made of gold only in 1955 when during a shifting operation from the deserted temple to the present location, the plaster got damaged exposing the metal. Part of the plaster is retained and on display.

Emerald Buddha actually is carved out of a block of green jade and discovered to be so only when flaking of the the plaster was noticed in 1434. It was in Laos for about 220 years before being brought back to Thailand.

All these are temples with regular worship even today.

                                                             
                                                                 Golden Buddha

                                                                   Reclining Buddha

Palace - sprawling on vast acres with two museums, one on textiles and the other on warfare - has its own architecturally wonderful buildings besides the Emerald Buddha temple, Royal residence and administrative offices. It even contains a miniature Angkor Wat crafted within itself.

               
                                                Palace where Emerald Buddha temple is

Wat Arun (Temple of Sun), to reach which  I took a speed boat (THB 1000) with towers one of which is 160 feet in height, is in ruins and no more in use as temple.

                                                                 Wat Arun (in ruins presently)

Madame Tussad though not as big as in London is simply superb. No amount of words can describe the joy you get when you visit one. The exhibits are kept free and open yet no damage to any of them. I wonder whether this would have been possible in India. There were oval table with chair for visitors to sit take photograph along with Obama and First lady, a throne next to a majestically standing Queen Elizabeth splendidly attired in white, a football that you can kick with a local Hero and the likes make it more interesting. Finally for THB 250 you can have wax model of your own hand. Entrance fee of THB 800 may look to be wee bit high?

As souvenir I bought a ‘sting ray’ leather hand bag, coming not cheap at THB3500.

Try as I may, I could not lay my hands on Crocodile Soup as suggested by Vichu. Seems to be available ONLY at the Crocodile Farm, far away from the city centre.

Malls in central Bangkok, a massage (though world famous is no match for Ayurvadic massages of Kerala) and side walk shopping (just as in Sarojini Market of Delhi or Rash Behari Avenue of Kolkata or Pondy Bazar of Chennai), peep into night life at 10.00 PM ended my sight seeing leaving the evening still quite young for the revelers.

(THB = Thailand Baht. 1 THB = INR 2.0 Approx. as on Sep 2013)