Bangkok - Wat Pho, Art Gallery, Siam Museum

We slept late and didn't get out until 11am for our first day sightseeing in Bangkok. Our first destination of the day was Wat Pho, which we reached by boat bus. We were confused at first by the lack of either skytrain or metro to our part of town, but the boat service, along with local buses, provides the old city with fine public transit. The boats are like another line in the skytrain-metro network.

Wat Pho was incredible. It reminded me a little of Mata Temple in Amritsar, India, with all the mirrored tiles, but it also looked and felt like a temple complex, compared with Mata, which felt more like something that belonged in a theme park. Inside the largest building was the famous Reclining Buddha. According to Lonely Planet, it is 46m long and 15m high, yes, meters not feet. It is enormous and hardly fits in its temple. This Buddha would make Michaelangelo's David's Goliath look puny. The body is covered in gold leaf, while the feet are mother-of-pearl inlay.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

The complex also had tons of less interesting Buddhas on display...

From Drop Box

Fancy doors...

From Drop Box

I forget what these things are, but there were a lot of them and their shape is symbolic of something to do with Buddha...

From Drop Box

And really nice guardian statues.

From 102_PANA

Wat Pho also has a history (and I think current use) as a school and repository of knowledge about Thai traditional medicine, including massage. There were tons of diagrams of the human body like this one. There were also statues demonstrating yoga and massage techniques.

From 102_PANA

After, we wondered along in search of the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, which together are Bangkok's biggest attraction. We stopped for lunch nearby, where Mary enjoyed sticky rice and something satay-like (but without peanut sauce), while Josh had some "Chicken Curry." It seems to be difficult getting names for anything beyond meat type, "curry," and "Pad Thai." I guess most tourists don't know Thai food all that well (which makes me wonder what exactly inspires them to go to Thailand). After we ate, Josh managed, with some effort, to figure out which "chicken curry" was the massaman. Maybe next time...

Also along the way we stopped and purchased some Thai iced tea. If you've never had Thai iced tea in Thailand, then you don't know how good it can be. Basically it tastes just exactly like Thai iced tea in the US, but it's better when it is 100-something degrees out, and costs only 60 cents. The secret ingredient seems to be Carnation evaporated milk. No wonder it is so good!

By the time we arrived at The Grand Palace (after having been told it was closed, too busy, too hot, or not that cool--by commission sharks) it was almost 3pm, and the sign said it closed at 3:30. So we decided to put it off to the next day. It really was beastly hot. We stopped in the shade for a minute to consult the email Mary's Dad's friend Pat had sent us. He suggested an art gallery across the street associated with the university, and since we figured it would have AC, we ducked inside. It was a free museum and the AC was glorious. The art was also incredible (unfortunately for you guys, no photos allowed), though I'd be lying to say we enjoyed it as much as the AC.

We chose for our next stop the Siam Museum because it was nearby, free, we assumed it would have AC, and it wasn't about to close. Plus, Lonely Planet described it as "fun". The first part of the museum was a little lame, with a certain amount of "this is what archeology means," "this is what 'bronze age’ means," etc, but once we launched into some actual history of the area, it was useful. Much of Thailand's land is actually very new, having been deposited recently by river deltas. As such, Thai history doesn't go back nearly as far as other countries in the area like India and China. Basically, Thailand has always been a trading center between India and China, and has developed the culture, ethnicity, and prosperity you might expect from that. When the Europeans came, it managed to retain its independence, though in large part it accomplished this by quickly Westernizing. The king of the time seems to have been a very wise man, who succeeded in showing Europe that Thailand was plenty civilized already, thank you, by adopting a lot of Western culture in a hurry to show the Europeans what they wanted to see. Additionally, the capital was very nicely defensible.

The section on religion was amusing, offering fair short descriptions of animism and Hinduism, and then basically said Buddhism is the most logical explanation of the human condition ever. However, we really liked the artistic columns used to demonstrate Buddhist wisdom. (There were words above.)

From Drop Box

On our way home, we passed through a beautiful park full of Thai people. There were a couple jazzercise groups, some yoga, some sports, and joggers. Now here's a sign of an affluent people--exercise for fun. My photos of people doing stuff didn't come out as it was too dark, but here's one of the cool flowers from along the fountain.

From Drop Box

Bangkok - Arrival

We arrived early in the morning and very tired in Bangkok. The airport moneychangers weren't offering much for our leftover rupees (about half wouldn't take rupees at all), but we ended up changing some anyway as the ATM only spit out 1000 bhat notes (worth about $30).

With a little effort (and a lot of determination), we managed to find the free shuttle to the public bus station near the airport, and then a bus (the 516) to Khao San Road where we wanted to stay. It was only 33 bhat each, and had AC, and didn't make many stops. Score. The tourist bus from the airport to Khao San costs 150 and a taxi is 450. Gotta love public buses. And while the buses here are slightly reminiscent of Indian buses (not really pulling all the way up to the curb, starting up pretty quickly once people get on, and having a conductor to handle tickets), they are not crazy crowded like Indian buses. They seem about the right amount crowded, varying from a few extra seats to a comfortable standing room only, like popular bus routes in the US.

We had some difficulty keeping our eyes open, but were still aware of how much nicer Bangkok is than Delhi. To put it delicately, it looked like a regular modern city rather than a slum. We found our stop and wandered around Khao San for a bit before giving up finding an AC double less than 500 Bhat. Then we wandered some more and started to worry that we might not find one with space at all. So when we found an AC twin (two twin beds) for 550, we jumped on it. At around $16.50, this is our second most expensive room of the trip, but not the nicest. Granted, in most of India we didn't even check if rooms had AC because we weren't going to use it.

We spent the remainder of the day alternating between napping in our AC, sampling the street food, and wondering the nearby neighborhoods. There's a nice residential area between our hotel and the river. Over there we found some cute, cheap, and quiet-looking guesthouses, but no AC. We also found a few machines selling filtered water (bring your own bottle) for 1 bhat/liter, which seems to be a very good price. Going rate for bottled water is at least 10 bhat/liter, and most of the bottles are poor quality.

We also got down to the river front.

From Drop Box

It is incredibly hot here, but also incredibly nice. It's clean. Traffic seems to have patterns and conventions of right-of-way. Prices tend to be posted. The food is generally safe. (Our residual diarrhea (Josh) and constipation (Mary) cleared up almost immediately.) The touts go away after you tell them you aren't interested. And you can buy a coconut from a guy on the street for less than a dollar (granted, I could do that in India too, but I was afraid to drink it). If this isn't paradise, I don't know what is.

Everything is more expensive here than in India by 1.5x to 2x, which is a bit of an adjustment. But really it's worth every single extra bhat.

Stuck in India

On Saturday the 6th, we were supposed to depart the country, with a 4:40pm hop from Gaggal (an hour from Mcleod Ganj) to Delhi, and then a red-eye shortly after midnight to Singapore. We spent the morning getting packed up, buying a few last minute things, and having a final couple Tibetan meals, before taking a taxi to the airport because we hadn't given ourselves quite enough time to take the bus. We got there, and found that our flight had been canceled for reasons unspecified. Guess we should have checked on that before going to the airport. Everyone (especially our taxi driver, but also the security guards at the airport) seemed to think we should just continue by taxi to Delhi to catch our connecting flight, since that only takes 10 hours, and didn't seem to understand when we explained to that we didn't have 10 hours remaining before our next flight.

Unfortunately, Gaggal airport only has one flight per day to Delhi (maybe only one flight period), and the folks working there, while happy to refund us our money (well, to refund it to the online company we booked through), had no interest in helping us make our other flight. I don't know if that's because it was on another airline (no single airline goes to Gaggal and Singapore), or if they just don't have that responsibility to you at all in India. Apparently, the online company we booked through also has no such responsibility here in India, even though we booked the flights as a pair--something we certainly would not have done if we'd known the financial responsibility would be on us if the first flight failed to get us to the second one. The online company proceeded to be completely useless, not even able to tell us what the cancellation charges would be on the second half of the trip. Oh, yeah, and while we were there, another group was trying to get their refund for a flight they'd been supposed to take 3 weeks earlier, but had been similarly canceled. It'll be interesting to see how much of the $800 for those tickets we see credited back to our credit card.

On the bright side, there was wifi in the airport, which we used to try to figure out what to book to move on with our trip instead. We stayed there looking at flights until the airport closed, then sat outside for another 3 hours trying to book it. See, in addition to the airline website taxing our little mobile device to the limit, our credit card kept getting rejected. We kept calling the company over Skype, and they kept explaining that the charge had looked suspicious, so our card had been deactivated, but now that they knew it was us and that we were overseas (since apparently they weren't listening when we told them before we left), it wouldn't happen again. We had this conversation with them 2 times before being kicked off the airport grounds, with a credit card which had been at that point locked for a 3rd time. On the bright side, I'm confident that if that card were stolen, no fraudulent charges would be placed on it.

We proceeded to take the bus back to Dharamsala (the town just down the hill from Mcleod Ganj with decent bus access to Delhi), and managed to book ourselves a flight to Bangkok using our 3rd and final credit card from an Internet cafe. We discovered on the bus ride to Dharamsala that not all Tibetan bread is created equal, and the stuff we'd bought that morning was way better than the stuff we'd tried our first day in town. Would have been nice to know before. They were like giant English muffins, and we found ourselves wishing for a toaster and a fried egg, but enjoyed them very much anyway. If we ever move to Dharamsala, I'm totally going to open a cafe and sell McleodMuffins made of Tibetan bread with a masala omelet in the middle.

The bus ride to Delhi the next day was long and miserable, but it got the job done. And thanks to the miracle that is the Diva cup, Mary was able to manage it in spite of having scheduled herself to have her period in Singapore. We managed to catch another bus to the airport and arrived just about exactly the right amount early for our 1am flight to Bangkok, having expected to have like 3-4 hours extra.

India has been an experience, that's for sure. I'm a little sad to say it, but it's kind of a relief to be leaving. As I sit here writing from our flight to Bangkok, I can't decide which of the following I most hope is different about Thailand: I hope it isn't so dirty, smelly, and polluted; I hope the people have more respect of personal space (the Indian man next to me on the airplane is seriously leaned over 6 inches or more into my seat and against my shoulder and is taking no hints at all to give me some more space--not cool--and this is so typical of men in India); I hope the people are less pushy about selling stuff.

Mcleod Ganj - Triund Hike

In spite of our disappointing hike to Dal Lake, on our last full day in Mcleod Ganj, we decided to do the 9-km hike up to Triund. We got kind of a late start, not leaving until a little after 11am, and the first thing we did, just a bit uphill of our hotel, was to stop and watch a gaggle of monkeys. They were quite entertaining, fighting or playing with one another. At one point there was a bit of fighting over a potato chip wrapper that made us think of "The Gods Must Be Crazy" and we even noticed one monkey sitting off by himself chewing gum and playing with it. Mary wished she had some chewing gum for herself, so she could demonstrate bubble blowing to the monkey.

From 102_PANA

For the first few kilometers, we were on a road that got rougher and rougher until at some point we noticed that it was really more of a path and not going to be navigable by vehicles anymore. The path wound its way up the mountain (a total of 1300 m elevation over 9 kms) through a rhododendron forest. Josh found what appeared to be a gold wedding ring and all the way up the trail asked everyone we met if they had lost a ring. We got lots of commanding views of the valley and Mcleod Ganj getting smaller and smaller below us. After a while were following far above a steep dry riverbed, which must, during the wet season, be the multi tiered waterfall that Lonely Planet referred to (way to fail to warn us again that it's only a seasonal waterfall).

From Drop Box

At some point in here we met a couple British women who had been living in Udaipur for the past several months while putting on a production of MacBeth. They were hiking in flip-flops and fairly pathetic looking little canvas shoes, but they were also making slightly better time than we were (at least than Mary's pace), and left us behind.

A little after 1pm, we were so exhausted that we stopped for a nap for a while.

From Drop Box

Around about 2pm we were passing a little hut and starting to think about turning back, as we had no clue how much further we had left and were getting pretty tired, when we met a couple on the way down stopped for chai who assured us it was only another hour and a half, that there was food available, and that it was totally worth it. They pointed out to us a building on the ridge and told us it was our destination. It looked a good deal closer than Mcleod Ganj, so we continued up the mountain. We started getting to small patches of snow, which was at first really cool, but as they got to be larger snowfields they became annoying and a bit challenging to cross.

From Drop Box

We took a lot of breaks because the trail was so steep and were wondering if the 1 and a half hours estimate was how long it took to hike the remaining distance, or if it included breaks. Evidently it included breaks as we just beat the time estimate. Here is Josh pointing at our destination from the hut 1.5 hours away.

From Drop Box

When we got to the top of the ridge we found the two British women, who said they'd been there only 10 minutes and been over to the hut we'd been assuming was the guesthouse described in Lonely Planet, only to find it all locked up. We were impressed that they'd made it at all with their lack of shoes. The guy in the tarp hut they were sitting next to was selling omelets, toast, and chai, and not even for outrageous prices. We enjoyed the view and the company over omelets. We also found out from them that there was a "theater" back in Mcleod Ganj that would be showing "Where the Wild Things Are" at 6pm and then "Sherlock Homes" at 8:30pm. We figured we would have no trouble making it back for either of these. And the idea of a movie from home sounded really good.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

After snapping some photos and lamenting that the better part of the mountains were in the clouds today, we started back down with the British women around 4pm.

From 102_PANA

Going down was much faster and after not too long we were having a nice long rest outside the shelter where we'd met the couple having chai. When we got up from our rest, Mary discovered that she had a big blister on her 4th toe on the right side. We applied a bandaid from the first aid kit (mole skin is less useful without a pocket knife), and it was okay. We continued to hike down with the British women and followed them down a wrong turn quite a long way, until we got to a rest point where they decided to sit to watch the sunset. We were still hoping to get home by dark and decided not to wait around for sunset. However, the trail didn't look that familiar to us. A little way down we met an Indian man who had passed us coming down and asked if this path went to the town we were trying to reach. He said it was a short cut, but a difficult one. We decided to turn around and go back the way we came to save our ankles. When we got up to the others, they assured us they'd come up this way and it wasn't so bad. So we went back down and met the Indian guy coming back up saying he'd decided this path was too steep and advising that we turn around too. So we did. He stopped and argued with the British women for a while about their route and we didn't see him again. Shortly after we got back on the right path, we saw a rather dramatic sunset, then the lights in the villages down below start to come on. We reached a road just as it was getting dark and asked directions at a guesthouse and got out our headlamp. Since the directions at the guesthouse hadn't been that clear, we asked some people a little further along, and they said the road we were on would work, but on foot in the dark we'd be better off taking that trail over there, and that it would pass through another village where we could get further directions.

From Drop Box

The trail was not at all familiar, but we took it. Eventually we stopped at a house for directions, where we met a guy who said he had just walked up from Mcleod Ganj where he works, and gave us directions again. Soon we were back on a road, and Josh started walking backwards with Mary trying to lead him in a modified ballroom hold to save his knees. We stopped a few time and turned off the light to admire the stars. We got back to our hotel in time to change our clothes before rushing down to the Japanese restaurant for some great vegetarian sushi before rushing to the theater just as "Sherlock Homes" was starting. The theater was less nice than our setup at home, but it was fun anyway. What a great last day in India!

Mcleod Ganj - Dal Lake Hike

We decided to see how hiking at this altitude was by taking the short 4-km hike up to Dal Lake. We followed the signs out of Mcleod Ganj and found ourselves headed down hill. After a bit, we came upon something that looked distinctly like a Christian cemetery, and soon arrived at the Raj (British occupation era) Church of St. John in the Wilderness, which was locked when we were there, but the sign indicated that they still hold regular services in English and in Hindi. The feeling on the grounds, in the woods and at the high cool elevation, of having stumbled into England was intense and rather welcome.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

Further along, we enjoyed some nice views of the valley that probably would have been spectacular on a clear day. There were also tons of rhododendrons, and a few other flowers. After a while, the road turned steeply uphill, and we were happy to take a break and stop at a Tibetan handy crafts showroom from a company recommended by Lonely Planet. It was a nice little fixed price shop with the lowest fixed prices we'd seen, so we decided to try to catch up on our souvenir shopping with bunches of brocade bags.

From 102_PANA

Just after the handy crafts showroom, we got to a fork in the road where the sign pointed to Mcleod Ganj to the right. Turns out that was the recommended route, which was level and more attractive overall, though lacked the English church and shopping opportunity. We took this route back, after returning from Dal Lake.

Anyhow, just a bit further up the hill was the Sacred Dal Lake, which probably would have been lovely if it had contained water. However, it was completely drained and there were a couple bulldozers on the lakebed digging it out. Basically, it was closed for renovations. We declined to do the additional walk up to the next town for views of the lake. The stream leading away from the lake still had some water in it (presumably diverted straight there from the lake input), and would perhaps have been aesthetically pleasing had it not been full of garbage. I think India is not the place to come for natural beauty. Have I mentioned their garbage problem? Oh, yeah, and even up here with the relatively low population, there is still a pretty significant raw sewage problem...

From Drop Box

Overall, it was a pretty disappointing outing that kind of turned us off the notion of hiking from Mcleod Ganj.

Side Topic: Wildlife in India

Wildlife is ubiquitous in Indian cities. In rough order of commonness, we have:

1. Dogs - Lots of wild dogs in the streets. Some are kept, some are partially kept, most are wild. The eat refuse like squirrels do in the states, and bark more than I'd like. A lot have been wounded from being hit in the streets.
   
   
   
   
2. Cows - Yes, there are tons of cows in the streets in cities and towns. The get in the way of traffic, and scavenge the leftovers in the street. At night, they go home and get milked. Cows are big. We even saw one in the train station and on the train tracks.
   
   

   Cow Eating Garbage in the Train Station from Drop Box

   
   
   

   Cows in the Street from Drop Box

   
   
   
3. Goats, Pigs, and Sheep - Like cows, but smaller. Which of these is most common seems to vary by region.
   
   

   Goats Climb on Stuff from Drop Box

   
   
   

   Goats Eating Leftover Flower Garlands Along Sacred River from Drop Box

   
   
   
4. Squirrels are more like chipmunks in size.
   
   
   
5. Monkeys - Monkeys are like really big and human-like squirrels. The really cheeky ones can steal handbags and eat the food out of them. Elsie had this happen to her; she got her stuff back, sans food. They seem to have become well adjusted to human society. Monkeys are crazy fast at moving around in cities or anywhere with some vertical stuff to climb on. Monkeys will probably get the vote soon.
   
   

   From Drop Box

   
   
   

Mcleod Ganj - Home of the Dalai Lama

McLeod Ganj has been our vacating from our vacation. The air up here is clear and cool, and there isn't a lot to do, so we're going to relax and eat good food, with excellent Western choices.

It's clear that this is a tourist town, far more so than any other place we've been, but the touts, aren't nearly as bad. The population is extensively Tibetan, or at least more Asian than Indian in appearance, though there are plenty of Indians also. The ratio of Americans to non-American Westerners is also off. There are a ton of American tourists here, where as we have hardly seen other Americans in the rest of India. Finally, there are women working jobs that involve interacting with tourists, which we mostly haven’t seen elsewhere in India.

Our first day, Mary wasn't feeling so well, and Josh did a little poking around the Tibetan complex by himself. The next day, we went back together and saw the Dalai Lama's home, the Tibet Museum, and the temples. The temples were interesting, though we weren't allowed to take photographs inside. Mostly they looked like Hindu shrines (though of course there were images of Buddha), except there were a whole bunch of modern offerings, like Chips Ahoy, Oreos, etc. There were great stacks of them in their packaging, often under glass as part of the whole display. It was... weird. I guess it just demonstrates that this is truly a living religion. There were prayer mats everywhere in the complex, and the Dalai Lama was in attendance, so there where many maroon-robed monks about. Unfortunately for us, the Dalai Lama's teachings this week were part of a series we would have had to have started years ago to attend, so we didn't actually get to see him. The Tibetans are big on religion, as you can see in the photos below.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From 102_PANA

From 102_PANA

From 102_PANA

On our 3rd day, we took a hike up to Dal Lake, but that's another entry.

On our 4th day, it rained. So we stayed in our hotel room, eating leftover Tibetan bread from a previous day's breakfast along with peanut butter, nutella, and chai from our hotel's restaurant. Most of the day we spent reading, both fiction (Mary: Around the World in 80 Days, Josh: 40 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) and planning for Southeast Asia, including out of our new-to-us copy of Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, which has been recommended to us by other travelers we talked to, but is not available for the Kindle currently. However, there was a copy of it at our hotel left behind by a previous traveler, which our host gave to us. It would have cost more new at the bookstore (amazingly there actually was a bookstore in town that carried it) than our room for 5 nights. In the late afternoon, we ventured out to the supposedly authentic Japanese restaurant, where the menu indicated that they knew how to make safe-to-eat salads. We enjoyed some amazing Miso soup, tempura, salad, and strange fried potato dumpling-like things, but Josh ate way too much. After, the rain stopped and there was an incredible rainbow over the snow-capped peaks. And, of course, this was the one time we'd left both cameras in the hotel room.

For our last full day we went on a long day hike, which will also be another post.