Trip of a Lifetime Round 2 ( Thailand: Bangkok)

Well after a few days in Siem Reap, I continued my quest and headed for my next country, Thailand. Naturally I started in Bangkok and man what an experience Bangkok was. Upon my arrival, I headed to the world famous Khao San Road. For those of you that do not know what this is, Khao San Road is the main street in Bangkok for Backpackers. Many start their adventure and or spend a good bit of time here during their travels around Southeast Asia. As soon as I arrived, I had absolutely NO problem finding a place to stay. After dropping down my gear, I headed out to check out Khao San Road. Although it is just a street with TONS of street vendors, restaurants, travel agencies, accommodation, and bars, it was still quite a sight. There are so many neon lights that it would seriously give The Strip in Las Vegas a run for its money. After walking around for a few hours, I decided to call it a night.

The next day, I woke up early and headed out to check out some of the famous sights around Bangkok. At first, I tried to navigate my way around the city on my own, but a lack of a good map made this nearly impossible. I finally said screw it and jumped into a Tuk Tuk (These are three wheeled motor cycle cabs as opposed to a normal car). Upon telling my tuk tuk driver where I wanted to go, he said that the temple that I wanted to see was closed and that I should go to another one instead. I decided to take his word for it and decided to let him take me to the temple that he had mentioned. Upon my arrival, I was actually pretty happy that he had taken me there. There was a MASSIVE gold Buddha statue that stood over 60 feet tall. After snapping some photos of the Buddha, I got back in the tuk tuk and told my driver where to take me next. He then proceeded to tell me that that temple was closed also. After thinking about it for a little while, I decided that this driver was taking me for a ride and I just told him to take me back to where I started. On our way back to Khao San Road, my driver forced me to go into a tailor shop to look at suits. (I later found out later that tuk tuk drivers do this with all of the people that they drive around because they get free gasoline from the tailor shop for bringing people in.) I proceeded to walk in and then right back outside and made my driver end his guided tour and demanded (in a polite tone) that he take me back to Khao San Road. After some negotiating, he finally agreed and I ended up back on Khao San Road.

After grabbing some food, I was ready to try again for what I had originally planned to see. This time however, I avoided the tuk tuk drivers and got into a legitimate taxi. This time, I told the driver where I wanted to go and he had no problem taking me there. The first temple that I went to see was called Wat Saket aka The Golden Mount. This temple is located on a hill and as the name indicates, has a huge golden spire at the top. After climbing the winding path around to the top of the hill, I was rewarded with not only incredible statues of Buddha but also with incredible views over Bangkok. I was able to see the entire city and surrounding area. It was quite a site. After snapping some photos, I was ready to head to my next destination. Me being me though, decided to strike up a conversation with a fellow westerner who was admiring the view of the city right next to me. It turned out that he was from New York. After introducing ourselves (his name was Jordan) and talking for a few minuets, we concluded that we were headed in the same direction and so we decided to go there together.

The next destination that we headed to is Bangkok's most famous site. This site is The Royal Palace complex. Included in this complex is a temple called Wat Phra Kaew. Upon our arrival, we were both literally stunned at the sheer beauty of the complex. There was so much gold that even the ancient Pharaohs and Aztec kings would be impressed. We spent the next two hours or so walking around the complex and admiring all of the golden statues and various buildings incorporated in the complex. I think that my favorite building was the building housing the "Emerald Buddha." It was my favorite for a few reasons. Not only was there incredible amounts of gold, but the Emerald Buddha happens to be one of the most important Buddha statues in all of Southeast Asia. I thought that it was really neat to be able to see this in person. After a few hours of admiring the complex, Jordan and I headed to our final stop of the day.

The next place that we went was yet another temple. This temple was called Wat Pho and it is famous for its MASSIVE "Reclining Buddha." Upon our arrival, I was yet again stunned at what I saw. Inside of the main shrine of the temple, there was a statue of Buddha in the laying down position that was probably over 30 feet tall and definitely over 100 feet long. It too was completely covered in gold. I seriously couldn't believe what I was looking at. After a good while admiring the massive Buddha in front of us, Jordan and I decided to call it a day. We said goodbye to each other and went our separate ways. I headed back to Khao San Road and called it a day. After such a long day the first day, I decided to chill on my second day in Bangkok. I just stayed around Khao San Road and walked around for a while.

My third day, I got back out and decided to check out some of the more un-conventional sites Bangkok has to offer. The first site that I checked out was the snake farm. This is a farm that holds tons of different types of snakes (both poisonous and non-poisonous.) While the farm makes money from tourists coming to see all of the different types of snakes, its main purpose is to use the snakes to make anti-venom vaccines for people that are unfortunate enough to get bitten by a poisonous snake. The farm makes this anti-venom by "milking" the venom of the poisonous snakes. They then take tiny amounts of this venom and mix it with some other things and like magic, they have the anti-venom. I was lucky enough to see a "milking" take place. The snake handler basically took the snakes head and forced it to bite onto a little funnel. The venom then drips into a jar below. It is then taken off to make the anti-venom. It was definitely an experience!

After the snake farm, I decided to walk around this huge park that was right next to the snake farm. After snapping some photos, I moved on to Chinatown. Bangkok's Chinatown isn't too much different from the many Chinatowns I had already seen so after walking around for a little while, I headed back to Khao San Road and once again called it a day.

The next day, I spent the morning just chilling out before heading to the main event for the day, a night of watching Muy Thai Boxing at one of the local stadiums. I ended up buying a ringside ticket and I was front and center for all of the action. Muy Thai is more like kick boxing that traditional boxing. The fighters may use their feet as well as arms to strike their oponents and let me just say that it isn't necessarily the first sport that I would choose to participate in. I am pretty sure those kids in the ring are going to be in pain until well after I am back in the United States.

The next day was my last day in Bangkok and so I decided to go out with a bang. I decided to do a day trip about two hours northwest of Bangkok to an area called the Kanchanaburi Province. This area happened to be a very important area for the Japanese when they occupied Thailand during World War II. The first site that we visited was a cemetery dedicated to POWs that had lost their lives in this area during the war.

After the cemetery, we headed to the JEATH War Museum. JEATH stands for Japanese, English, American/Australian, Thai, and Holland/Dutch and represents the countries that had the most casualties in this area during the war. The museum was very interesting and focused on a railway line in the area that is known as the Death Railway. It got this name because of all of the people that died during its construction. The railway served as an important link for the Japanese between Thailand and Myanmar. After checking out the museum, we headed to lunch. Lunch was really good and what made it even better was the fact that we got to eat at a restaurant that was literally floating on the local river. It was really neat to be eating and see the water flowing right under my feet!

After lunch, we took a short drive to a local waterfall. The waterfall was really beautiful and after snapping some photos, we headed to the day's main attraction, the Tiger Temple. This temple use to be just a regular Buddhist temple but has since become a sanctuary for Tigers. Since the adoption of their first Tiger 10 or 15 years ago, the temple has successfully bread the tigers and now they have over 20 in the complex. The coolest thing about the experience is how close regular people can get to the tigers. They are SUPER tame and I was able to go up and pet them and take pictures with them like they were my pet dog. It was REALLY awesome and be sure to check out the pictures. After the temple, I came back to Bangkok and called it a night. The next day, I took off for Chang Mai where I am right now. Keep tuned for more updates from Chang Mai and the Thai Islands!