Thailand: Four Nights in Bangkok

It's quite a change when you travel from northern Norway to Bangkok. Different climate, daylight, many people, and then different people, different currency, tap water that you can't drink, public transportation that costs almost nothing, different religion, face masks...We arrived at our hotel (which also costs very little) after some detours and hid in our room. Jetlag paired with being awake for too long.

The next day, we explored the metropolis on foot. We had researched some sights of the city in advance that we wanted to visit. Our tour was redirected on the way. The Loha Prasat, a Buddhist temple, captivated us. The roofs are decorated with a lot of gold, and in the main hall, there is a large golden Buddha. Only the monks' meditation areas are very simple (but you can see the golden roofs from there).

Just around the corner is the Wat Saket temple on the "Golden Mount". This temple was built not on a natural elevation but on the ruins of its predecessor. The old temple collapsed centuries ago, its ruins were "secured" and the new temple was built on top of them. Now you have a great view of the city from above.

We continued our temple tour and went to Wat Pho. A large temple complex with lots of buildings, Buddhas, and pagodas. In a large hall, there is one of Thailand's largest reclining Buddha statues. Completely made of gold and huge!

Behind the statue, there were probably 50 metal bowls lined up in a row. Believers, superstitious people, and tourists each threw a bronze coin into each bowl in order. You could buy these coins in front of the temple. The start of the coin throwers was amusing. A woman who made space in the bowls.

On the edge of the temple courtyard, there is an old and well-known school for Thai massages. Cerina treated herself to 30 minutes of it, and then we relaxedly went back to our accommodation.

We didn't plan much time for Bangkok or Thailand. The flight here was the cheapest, and since we're here... But we really wanted to visit a cooking school in the short time we have. So we stood there armed with an apron and a cooking spoon in front of the wok. We cooked a great 5-course menu: First, Tom Khai Gai, a spicy chicken coconut soup, then Pad Thai, a typical Thai dish that you can find on every street corner. It consists of rice noodles with vegetables and chicken (and usually shrimp). The next course was green papaya salad (unripe papaya is green), which could also have consisted of cabbage. Then we pounded fresh chilies and other ingredients to make a green curry that was quite spicy. From that, we cooked a dish with chicken and some vegetables. For dessert, we had mango and sweet sticky rice with coconut milk (similar to rice pudding). Our teacher was very funny, cooking was fun, and the food was super delicious! We even received all the recipes to read later. Great thing.

On the same day, the Chinese New Year festival took place. We put on face masks and made our way to Chinatown. The main street was closed for the festival, and we expected great parades with dragons, drums, and dances. The streets were crowded, and there were many food stands along the sides. Security forces made a path. We assumed that a parade would pass through here shortly, but unfortunately it didn't happen. We waited for a while, but nothing happened. By now, some pedestrians were using the path to walk, and then we also left. Then we got hungry again, but the food stands didn't look trustworthy for our European stomachs, so we left Chinatown and ate near our accommodation.

Once upon a time, many, many years ago, Ayutthaya was the capital of the Kingdom of Siam. Thailand eventually emerged from this kingdom. Today, you can still visit the ruins of the old capital, which are located 60 km north of Bangkok. For simplicity's sake, we booked a guided tour that started at 7 o'clock in the morning. There were 8 other tourists in the minivan, 6 of them from Baden-Württemberg, and 2 from the United States. On-site, our guide told us that we were still waiting for the 6 other vans so that our group would be complete. Say what?! We booked the tour via AirBnB, where it said "maximum group size 10 people". Well, now we were there with more than 40 people and only one guide without a microphone, whom you could barely understand. Great. He didn't say much about the respective temples either, so we looked at the stacked stones that had become temples without knowing much about them. The temples and ruins of Ayutthaya are definitely worth seeing, no question. We just would have liked to learn more about them while we were there.

Bangkok fascinates with the interplay and collision of the old and the new world. Many temples, semi-collapsed huts, skyscrapers, wooden boats, yachts, markets, shopping malls...and every now and then monks praying, smoking, and handling their smartphones.

That's about it for our short visit to Thailand. The day after Ayutthaya, we boarded the bus in the morning to take us to Siem Reap, Cambodia. And it did. The border crossing was without problems, and we arrived safely at our accommodation. In the next few days, we will visit the temples of Angkor Wat, and then it will be time for the sea again. We will report back.