Of Protests, Buddhas and Elephants - Chinese New Year Part 1: Bangkok

Hellllllllllo,

I'm now back on campus! Woooo, bring out the welcoming party. Or not. Arriving back last night was somewhat of a shock to the system; I'm not used to going away, and then coming back to somewhere that isn't actually home - and campus is like a ghost town at the moment. Before I get onto the meat of the first part of our adventure, here's a little something I recently recived that I wanted to share. I about squealed and would've jumped off the bed if there was room in our tiny Hong Kong hostel room.

There may be a lack of photos in this blog, and (at current) a lacking accompanying photo album on facebook. Erm, that's because I accidentally managed to delete the photos off of the camera for Bangkok, in my efforts to collate them all - I made a new folder on the camera itself, to put them in that one from various locations on the camera. Unplug the camera, move up to TCR for fast upload, open up camera folders - and it's gone. Smart one Jacob! So until I can get hold of a USB Memory Card Reader, and then attempt to run data recovery programs on that, I have none of the photos I took from our trip to Thailand... So if you're reading this, and are near campus/on campus and have a card reader I can borrow for 30mins tops, please save me <3 To make up for that in the meantime, the collection of quotes from our holiday will also go up today.

Thailand

Who:Alice, Anna, Vicky and I
Where: Bangkok, Thailand
How Long: Three days

After what seemed like the longest exam period ever, the four of us set off to LCCT on the 22nd of Janurary to begin the much needed holiday. Being the clued up travellers we are, we had all been keeping a (nervously so) close eye on the recent developments in Bangkok - including the government declaring a "State of Emergency" in the capital. As such, we arrived knowing the dangers and risks, and what to avoid (the protest areas.) Upon perhaps two hours of arriving at our Hotel (Lemontea Hotel in Pratanum, a great place to stay, and very reasonably priced,) we'd managed to walk into one of the protests. Oops.

As it turns out, we need not have been so worried about it. The protest area we wondered into, was one of the main streets in Bangkok, that they are currently camped out in, and have been for some time. Street stalls line the road, the shops behind doubtlessly annoyed at the lasting intrusions. If you want a t-shirt saying "Shutdown Bangkok," then you're in the right place. The opposition leader was making a speech a street over, and we could hear his voice booming over the microphone, the speakers and large screen broadcasting him weren't quite necessary this close by. Enough excitment we decided for night, lest we start feeling rather Che-Guevarat-esque, we left to go do a bit of exploring around the area, and wondered through some of the night market stalls, grabbing dinner at a restaurant on the way.

All of a sudden my hair started to grow out, and a most wonderful 'stache graced my upper lip upon entering the protests.

At the airport, in the process of booking a taxi, we had stumbled across a tour operator. This was to be the basis of our first whole day in Bangkok. The tour bus and our guide picked us up in the morning (of the 23rd,) for the "Temple and City Tour," visiting two large Buddah Statues in two seperate temples around Bangkok. For the un-aware, there are a total of 8 differennt Buddah poses seen in statues, with each being assigned to a different day (Wednesday has two, the greedy thing,) and the one that you pray to, is the one assigned to your day of birth. The first Buddah we saw, was the "medidating buddah," one made of solid gold(I think?), and weighing in at a hefty 5.5tonnes.  Next up was the "Reclining Buddah," and this one happened to be the 3rd (only 3rd?!) largest Buddah in Thailand. At a crazy 15m high, and 46m long, it was fairly impressive to say the least. Not solid gold this time though.                                        

Down by the feet.
Once again, photo from Alice, as you all know the saga of mine...

And here is a picture, from Alice.
 I'll learn to open my eyes in photos one day

The rest of our tour (City) was just being driven around to see a few governmental buildings, the Royal Palace (which is private,) and then a jeweler shop and a tailors - the last two being fairly common type stops at the end of tours as we've learnt, with the drivers/guides receiving bonuses/benefits for taking people to these places, so we just pretended to be interested in the things before making excuses to leave. In the afternoon, the girls went off for a Thai massage (the sign stated in no uncertain terms that it was JUST a massage,) whilst I grabbed a power-nap back in the hotel room. Before leaving our tour guide, we booked onto a tour for the next day, and bought tickets for a Cabaret show in the evening, at somewhere called "Asiatique," a short boat ride away down the river. The whole Asiatique area had lots of restaurants and bars, as well as good views of the river and Bangkok skyline. I can't say I had ever been to a Cabaret show, so it was an experience, but a very good one at that. A drink being included in the ticket price was a nice bonus too - evenmoreso when it started with G and ended in "in and tonic." I didn't start giggling, don't worry. 

Photo with performers after the show.
 Don't ask me to tell you who's a he and who's a she.

 

Our tours for the second day (24th) involved a lovely early morning start, as we had to drive 90min outside of Bangkok -destined for the floating markets. I wish I had my photos now, as I've got a great one of Vicky and a floating fruit seller re-enacting Michealangelo's famous "Creation of Adam,"(clothed...) as adorns the Sistine Chapel, but that'll have to wait till I manage to recover the photos... :( The floating markets were really good, lots of touristy things, but also more traditional sellers on their small boats up and down the river/canals, selling fresh fruit, noodles (they cooked on these tiny boats - pretty much wooden kayaks,) fried bananas and more. There was also, much less to my enjoyment, various stalls with large snakes for photo opportunities, never once failing to trigger what felt like my fight and flight response every time we had to walk past once. Next on the list of acitivites, was riding an elephant. I'll share with you, a pearl of humour from this activity. 

"Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"Because were coming on an elephant."

Anna and Alice's elephant saying hello. 

In the afternoon, we were headed to a show/Zoo place of sorts. Not before a buffet lunch of course. Om nom nom Thai food. The first show, as befitting for Thailand, was an Elephant show. It went through the cultural and historica signifcance of Elephants to the nation, as well as more silly things, like Elephants playing football or doing handstands. There was even a mini battle re-enactment involving Elephants, which still sounded a tadge risky, with fake explosions and sword fighting happening around these large animals. It was a very good show, and one I'd recommend anyone visting Thailand to try and see something similar.The same place also had a crocodile wrestling show, yet this one wasn't as good. The two guys seemed to just be provoking the animals by dragging them out of the water, and then putting various limbs/bodyparts into their mouths. Hey, perhaps it's perfectly safe, it just seemed a little too far for me. The evening was a chilled one, resting of what was a rather busy day.

The 25th, sadly, was our last day in Thailand. We didn't do much, had a lazy morning and packed, before heading off to the Airport to see Alice off on her travels as she was leaving us, and then waiting around a fair while (too many hours for me to want to remember) for our flight. We passed the time reading books, being silly and thinking about what we were gonna do in our next destination - Siem Reap, Cambodia. 

That's it for Thailand, and once again, sorry for the lack of photos from yours truly at present - I'm a numpty.Hopefully I can sort it out, and I'll probably do Cambodia's blog tomorrow, or maybe this evening. For now I'm off to the gym (it's been two weeks, I've gotten serious withdrawal symptoms,) 

And no, for anyone asking, we didn't go to see a Ping Pong Show. 

Not that kind of Ping Pong.