Honeymoon Part 1: Bangkok

So, if you remember from my post on the Barbados trip, we decided to take two honeymoons: one short trip right after the wedding to get out of town and relax, and one longer trip later in the summer to more exciting and adventurous locations. We just got back from the longer megamoon, which was amazing. I'm dividing it into a few posts to avoid having one overly long post.

Part 1: Bangkok

After more than 24 hours in flight, we finally arrived in Bangkok early on Saturday morning. We checked into our hotel, the Lebua at State Tower, a huge highrise that happened to be the location where they filmed The Hangover Part 2. Great place with a fantastic balcony.

View from our balcony- note the river. 

We were both wide awake at that point, despite not having slept at all, so we decided to explore the city. Our travel book recommended taking a boat out on the river and canals that run through the city, so we started there. We signed up for a short ride in a long tail boat to tour the temples on the river and see the floating market. Unfortunately, something was lost in translation, so we saw none of those things and instead got a nice tour of the slums that grow on the canals. It was a great reminder of the poverty in this huge city, but a bit more of a slap in the face than either of us wanted to start out trip with.

One of many small temples seen from the canals

After that, we went to the shopping district which was supposed to have an amazing restaurant, but it turned out to be a food court in a huge mall. We were both disappointed and totally overwhelmed by the millions of people in the area- so we went back to our hotel and called it a day. 

The second day we started out early. After a quick run in the hotel gym, we headed out for the old part of town where all the big temples are located. We started with the Grand Palace, in which the famed Emerald Buddha, a symbol of the country, is housed. We didn't actually find the Buddha, but found lots of other very cool things. The grounds are just covered in very ornate, very colorful things everywhere you look. 

Guys at the Grand Palace

Us at the Grand Palace

Then we headed across the street to Wat Pho- a temple with the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand. He was definitely huge, and hard to capture on camera. 

Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho

On our way to the next stop, we ran across a small stand selling nothing but Pad Thai. Being quite hungry at this point, we eagerly sat down. I think we both had the impression that Pad Thai was an American dish, but it was everywhere in Thailand and oh so tasty.

R and Pad Thai

Next we hopped on a water taxi to take us to Wat Arun, a classic temple on the other side of the river. It looks kind of drab from a distance, but when you get close you realize it's covered in small bits of ceramic. It was quite cool, and a great place to get a view of the whole city. At this point, the rain clouds started rolling in, and we ran for cover under the overhang of a ticket booth. We were stranded in the pouring rain for almost an hour, and completely soaked by the end.

Ferry from Wat Arun

Ceramic-Covered Wat Arun

Tired and soaked but eager to push on, we hopped in a cab for the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market. This place is claimed to be the biggest market in the world, so we both wanted to see it.  Our book told us to expect that this market would sell everything, from old shoes to baby squirrels. We knew it would be intense, but somehow didn't expect the chaos that it was. This place was completely overwhelming and sometimes disgusting- with a huge section of live animals and thousands of people. After an hour or so, we were completely overwhelmed, utterly exhausted,  and ran back to hide at our hotel for the rest of the night. 

Chatuchak Market

Drinks on the roof bar of our hotel

The next day was our third day and scheduled day trip. After feeling pretty slapped around by Bangkok, we were excited to get out of it and into a bit of nature. We hired a taxi to drive us up to a nearby national park (3 hours away), wait for us, and then drive us home that evening. It seemed like a weird thing to do, but it's apparently entirely normal. It was actually a nice drive- we used the time to try out our Thai phrases on our very nice driver. We also swung by the location of the famous Bridge on the River Kwai- which isn't really anything to see because the bridge was destroyed a few months after being built, but interesting anyway. In the summer heat and jungle humidity, it's hard to imagine building anything there. 

We arrived at the Erawan National Park, known for its series of seven waterfalls. You start at the bottom, and it gets harder and harder the higher you go, so there's something of a competition to see how many waterfalls you can see. Our bellboy proudly told us he had gotten to the fifth waterfall. After a quick stop at the noodle shop (because there are noodle shops everywhere), we started the climb. Pad See Ew, btw, turns out to be fabulous in Thailand. Much lighter than the American dish.

Me and Pad See Ew

We climbed to the top and saw all seven. They were each amazing and very different from each other. It was funny to watch the other hikers. Many disappeared after the first few waterfalls. Many were hiking in flipflops and swimsuits. We, of course, were fully geared for the event.

One of the seven waterfalls

On the way down, we wanted to stop to swim in the fourth waterfall, but were chased off by a pack of monkeys, so we stopped at the second or third instead. It was beautiful, but full of small fish that like to eat the dead skin and scabs off your feet. The pool of literally man-eating fish kind of creeped us both out, so it took a while to get up the nerve to jump in. Eventually we jumped in and swam rapidly to the waterfall and back. Sidenote- across Thailand, you can pay to put your feet in tanks of smaller versions of these fish to eat the callouses off your feet. I will never do that.

One of many monkeys on site.

Our swimming waterfall

 

Man-eating fish

After a quick swim, we returned to our cab, which was still there and waiting for us. We arrived back in Bangkok and happily retreated to our hotel. We ventured out briefly for dinner, but otherwise turned in. 

In our three days, we failed to see the side of Bangkok that included ragey, alcohol benders and drug-induced comas with prostitutes and transgender strippers. Maybe we weren't in the right parts of town for that or maybe we just didn't stay up late enough. Instead, we did get a strong sense that Bangkok is a huge, densely populated city with a lot of poor people. It was fascinating and exciting, but also totally overwhelming to behold. We skipped a lot of meals in those three days because we were too tired and too hot to eat, and because it was too intimidating to venture outside. As we packed up our bags that night, we were both glad we came, but excited to move on to our next stop in Chiang Mai.