Wrapping it up! Wed/Thurs, Oct 28/29, 2015

Our driver parked the bus and we walked to our boat launch, more like stumbled in the heat.  Lunch was across the murky Chao Phraya to Supatra River House - "Exotic Thai Seafood Cuisine."  Eleven hot, thirsty travelers sat down in the air conditioning and cooled off. Water and juice were served and we drank our fill.  The food was delicious. Thailand had the best food on our trip by a long shot.

You guys get away from that dog!

The entire group was nearly undone by the heat,
but it was nice to cool off, sit with friends, and enjoy lunch. 

While we waited for the river boat to return following lunch, I wandered into the courtyard where enormous orchid plants were in full bloom.  Bangkok can grow some flowers!  The cute little elephant below was nearby.

Back at the Majestic Grande, Jimmy and I shucked off sweaty clothes, showered, and decided to join Sheila, Bernice, and Irwin on the streets near the hotel to search for T-shirts.  After the fact, Jimmy and I wished we'd gone to the pool instead.  Sheila found a T-shirt, but none of the rest of us did.  We managed, however, to get hot and sweaty all over again! 

I just don't know what I can say about this picture!!!

Dinnertime found us back on the bus and then walking toward the river, but the sun was down and the evening air was balmy.  Did we see a flash of lightning?  Was that thunder? Yes and yes.  We made it to Arun Restaurant on the river, seated inside (that's important) in air conditioning and watching the lightning show before rain fell in sheets. The first rain of our entire trip, and the rain stopped before we left the restaurant!  Lucky, lucky us!  

Last night's dessert was white sticky rice.  This evening we had black sticky rice with fresh mango and a tiny dish of ice cream -- delightful and delicious!  Double thumbs up.  After dinner we strolled back to the bus on wet streets, returned to the hotel and packed our suitcases.  The bus left the hotel at 9:30 pm for Bangkok's airport; our flight to Beijing would depart at 1:05 am on Thursday.

So, this basically marked the end of our three-week trip to the Best of the Mountain Kingdoms.  Months of planning and anticipation went into our trip, and though I failed to keep reliable notes at times (blame it on overwhelm?), the pictures we took and this blog will serve to jog our memories when we need an assist.  Truly, a trip of a lifetime!

The sights we saw, both natural and man-made, won't fade in our eyes anytime soon, if ever.  New friends, new countries and cultures, fantastic experiences, hikes to monasteries most can only dream about, all these things we'll cherish.  

On a lighter note, some of the bathrooms we used were, uh, certainly different than anything we'd seen in the west.  The worst was having to squat over a smelly cement trough with liquid running along the bottom, but at least it had stalls with doors! Everybody has to go, and it's any port in the storm, so to speak.  Many of the toilets in ladies rooms had what looked like a man's urinal, only flat on the floor, and that was what we had to use.  

As I was saying, Krish and Matthew guided us through the cavernous, crowded airport, avoiding long queues, and we made it in and out of customs and security without delay. Our luggage was checked straight thru to Los Angeles (LAX) for which we were grateful.  We bade Krish and Matthew goodbye ... we'd grown quite fond of Krish and his impulsive, fun nature.

We didn't see Mount Everest or the Himalayas this flight,
but I wanted to leave you with this photo.

The flight from Bangkok to Beijing was peaceful and uneventful, with little sleep for me unfortunately, and we landed at 5:30 am Thursday (6:30 Beijing time).  We had a fairly long layover in Beijing, and the lounge we had passes for turned out to be less than stellar, so four of us scouted out a breakfast place.  Our next flight -- the long one -- from Beijing to LAX left at 12:30 pm Thursday afternoon, and landed at LAX something like 12 hours later at 9 am Thursday morning.  How's that for flying into yesterday?  Food was served twice, the first time shortly after we boarded.  As we traveled into night, the cabin lights went dark and the plane became quiet. We slept off and on.  Between 3-4 hours pre-LAX, life aboard the jet stirred and more food was served, which we ate; we were hungry.  We still had three hours till we arrived at LAX.  I was next to a window and even with my blanket and pillow, I got cold.  I grew tired of sitting and got up occasionally to stretch and walk in the aisles.

Finally, at LAX, all went smoothly and our little group of 11 split as people went to find their connecting flights. We changed (and paid for it) to an earlier flight from LAX to Sacramento (the last flight this trip!) and got into SMF (Sacramento -- we call it Smurf) a little after noon on Thursday.  Still Thursday!  Matt picked us up at the airport and soon we were home.  Home.  We spent the next week-and-a-half trying to get right-side again -- jet lag supreme!

Lastly, Jimmy requested no more rice for a long time, since we had rice with every lunch and dinner!

To the Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand, Wed, 10/28

Even as we were wilting in the humid heat, our little Road Scholar convoy of 11 (plus our Thai guide, Matthew), continued on to Bangkok's Grand Palace complex.  This was established in 1782 and has been the royal residence of the Thai King for the last 150 years.  It also houses a number of government offices, as well as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  And the complex is big, covering close to a square mile, surrounded by four walls.

From the bus window, I spotted a Common Myna.

The last time I saw a Myna was on the Big Island of Hawaii, but they are native to Asia.

From the outside, looking at the Upper Terrace, which consists of four main monuments: A reliquary in the shape of a golden chedi; the Mondop, a repository for Buddhist sacred scriptures inscribed on palm leaves, contained within a beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid cabinet; a miniature of Angkor Wat; and the Royal Pantheon.

Here we're near the entrance to the Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha.  Long pants and shirts with at least a little sleeve were required, and the area was crowded with tourists.

And pretty little girls like this young lady!

Golden warrior statues and some of us!
The nameplate below the statue reads:  Singhapanorn.

Golden Garudas vs Nagas at the Emerald Buddha (Phra Mondop).

Phra Mondop:  The demons that stand guard on top of the stairway are the work of King Rama I period and are regarded as the most perfectly proportioned of all existing classical sculptures of Rattanakosin craftsmanship.  

Again, shoeless, we entered the Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha, which is, in fact, carved from a block of green jade and was first discovered in 1434 in a stupa at Chiang Rai. At that time the image was covered with plaster and was thought to be an ordinary Buddha image.  Later, the abbot who had found the image noticed that the plaster on the nose had flaked off, revealing the green stone underneath.  The abbot initially thought the stone was emerald, and thus the legend of the Emerald Buddha began.  Alas, no photos were allowed inside.

Angkor Wat model.

Matthew carried a purple umbrella, so we could follow him in the crowd.

We were envious of the shade it provided.

Irwin, Bernice, Marilyn and Jimmy.

Statues of the monkey-dragon characters.  

How could we tell the monkeys from dragons?  Monkeys wore no shoes!

Wat Pra Kaew to the side of the Grand Palace.  The entire complex is open to the public.  We especially liked the English-Thai architecture mix.

So much detail -- dragon on the roof!

Modeled after English palace guards, young men (the guy on the right!), stand guard at the Grand Palace.  Jimmy asked if picture-taking was ok.  The guard answered, "Yes."

We were at the right place to watch the changing of the guard.

It was all so grand, but we were all wringing wet, literally dying in the heat.  After walking and touring, I veered away from the group, turned off my "whisper," and sought shade somewhere, anywhere.  I simply couldn't do it anymore.  It was about at that point that our guide led us back to the bus (the AIR-CONDITIONED BUS), for the transfer to a restaurant (lunch) across the river. The Grand Palace was, indeed, grand, but 90 degree humid heat in the sun overwhelmed most of us. Everyone was ready for a" cool" boat ride, and lunch in air-conditioned splendor!

Another famous landmark: Wat Pho, Bangkok, Wed 10/28

Road Scholar had our one day in Bangkok all planned out.  After the most delicious breakfast I've had in years from the hotel's extensive buffet (any foodie would adore), we were in the bus and on the road early, so we could be at Wat Pho to hear the monks chanting at 9 am.  Wat Pho is a Buddhist Temple Complex in Bangkok.  Luckily, the A/C on the bus was already churning out cool, dry air ... whew!  As you can see by the photo below, the city clean-up crew was still working on the sidewalk.

Here's Jimmy standing inside Wat Pho with a rather fierce-looking Chinese Stone Doll -- one of The Temple's Gate Guardians. In days of yore, these figures were used as ballast to stabilize ships returning from trade with China, and then placed as decorations in the temple. 

This opulent beauty is what we saw everywhere in Wat Pho!

From inside the Scripture Hall, where, to the left, the monks began chanting promptly at 9 am.  Shown on the "altar" is Phra Buddha Theva Patimakorn, which means "the Buddha built by heavenly beings." It is the main Buddha image in the Hall. The lighting overwhelmed the camera from every angle, but I did want to include this in the photo gallery.  We sat on the floor (shoeless), and made sure our feet were not pointing at the Buddha.  Chairs were placed on the far right for people who couldn't sit on the floor. After yesterday's hike, my legs cramped up sitting on the floor.

The Hall is surrounded by the temple boundary walls, and inside each corner of the courtyard was a soaring cement obelisk with gilded figures. 

These are a component of the structures around the Scripture Hall ... a double structure that runs around the Hall in four cardinal directions and houses major Buddha images.  The inner colonnade contains 150 Buddha images and the outer one 244 images.  Wat Pho has restored, lacquered and gilded all the images.  They're cast in bronze, displaying fine forms and features, and are a sight to behold. 

Jimmy and Krish with another (friendlier?) stone Chinese Stone Doll.

Entrance gate to the Great Pagodas of Four Kings,
made in Thai-Chinese style and decorated with incredible color-glazed tiles.  

The four huge pagodas, each one a stunning 138' high, standing on a notched-rim base and topped by a tall spire furbished with colorful mosaics.  Between the heat and the opulence, we were beginning to feel swamped.

Shoes off again (at every temple). I wished I'd remembered to either wear or bring sox.... Look at this amazing angle of the huge Reclining Buddha (all my camera could see).  This Reclining Buddha blew everyone out of the water. It's one of the most well-known and popular cultural icons in Thailand. The image is made from brick and stucco, is lacquered and gilded, and measures (ready for this?) 150 ft long by almost 50 ft high (from base to topknot). The Buddha in this position is said to be a lion reclining. The soles of Buddha's feet are of particular interest, but we didn't see them as Wat Pho was in the process of restoring them. The Reclining Buddha is acclaimed as the finest among large reclining Buddha images and is greatly revered by all Buddhists.  To see it in person was to be awed ... overwhelmed.

I've shown you a fraction of what we saw, a few pictures of the many I took, and it was all powerful. By this time, however, we were mighty thirsty (and overheated!) ... so we stopped for a water break before leaving this grand Buddhist Temple Complex. Next up is the Grand Palace!