Arriving in Bangkok

After a long flight, I have arrived in Bangkok.  Due to some complications with getting my working visa for Sri Lanka, I am temporarily misplaced in Thailand.  My options were to either stay in Canada, or fly to Bangkok and await news of my visa.  I elected to wait for my visa in Bangkok.

So I arrived on February 13th, and met my new "boss" in Bangkok, Mary Scott.  She so graciously let me bunk with her for the first few days at the "Royal City Hotel".  The hotel was packed full of Japanese tourists, who would load onto buses bright and early each morning heading off to do some sight seeing.  This was very fortunate because it would  leave the morning buffet nice and empty.... leaving me with lots of fresh fruit, including papaya, pineapple, and watermelon. Yum!  However, the coffee is some of the worst I have ever tasted.  Asia is not known for their barista skills.

The second day I joined Mary at the school, SSPO (Sirindhorn School of Prosthetics and Orthotics).  It is a very impressive facility; all new machinery, new labs, new clinic, offices, etc.  They are still in the process of moving everything over from the old site (which was located at the hospital) to their new location.  After we took a tour of the school we were driven over to the hospital, which is up the street from the school, to meet the director of the school; Dr. Nisarat.  She had just recently been in a terrible biking accident, where she fell into a ditch that was about 2 meters high and sustained 2 vertebral fractures.  So in addition to visiting Dr.Nisarat we received a tour of the hospital and the phyiso-therapy department.

Sirindhorn School of Prosthetics and Orthotics

Check out the mound of sand bags left over from the November 2011 flooding.

What was also very impressive about the school was its recovery from the recent flooding in late November.  There were no signs of any damage, other than a little musty smell in some of the rooms. Apparently the ground floor was under  1.5 meters of water at one point.  They students and stuff had to put all the machines onto the work benches and move various things around. Not an easy task, as some of the machines are huge belt sanders and grinders, industrial sewing machines and drill presses.  The only true sign of the chaos are the mounds of sandbags outside the front entrance to the school.   They don't know what to do with them, so there they lie for now.

The third day of my stay in Bangkok, I was released from my P & O duties to play tourist.  So I set out early and went to the Grand Palace.  A very impressive palace indeed!  Gold everywhere.  This is the palace that houses the famous emerald Buddha.  I had a fantastic tour guide, who explained the significance of many of the artifacts and paintings (she referred to the female statues as looking like lady Gaga because of the cone shaped bars they wear; funny girl).   She told me the story of the Monkey King vs Rama  King (how you can tell the difference between the two statues is by their feet... monkey's don't wear shoes).  We were also educated about the robes the emerald buddha wears according to the season; summer, spring, and winter coats.   The tour went onto show were the king is coroneted, the royal throne, and the ballroom where major events take place.  

Another interesting piece of information I learned on my tour was about flags that can be seen all over Thailand.  The red, white, and blue flag is the official flag of Thailand; the yellow flag which is also seen throughout the country is the king's flag.  Yellow is the color for tuesday, which is the day of the week the king was born on.   

Rama King statue at Grand Palace

After heading out from the Grand Palace I started a walking tour that Mary had suggested I take, found in her guide book of Bangkok.  It started out fairly well, with coconut ice cream for lunch, but soon went downhill after that.  I got lost!  Who should come to my rescue, but the ever so helpful tuk tuk drivers of Bangkok.  They can spot a lost tourist anywhere.  Being naive and new to the city, I thought it sounded fantastic when I was offered to be taken around the city to a number of the temples (Wats) and other tourist sights for only 40 THB.  So I jumped in the tuk tuk and off we went.  2 hours later, after being dragged from one tailer shop to another, I had enough.  It was a scam for tourists to buy custom suits and gems.  At first I thought I would help out the tuk tuk driver, as he said if I went into the shop for 10 minutes he would get a coupon from the store owners for his gas.  After doing this several times, and the driver still did not listen to the fact that I didn't need a tailor made suit, I firmly told him to take me back and forget trying to get a sale.   So back I went, to the place where I was originally lost.   I just wanted to get out of the sight of the tuk tuk drivers so I walked for about a block, and guess what was right there?  The temple I was trying to find on my walking tour; Wat Pho.  This temple was also very grand and packed full of more buddha statues, including the famous reclining buddha.  At first I had the hardest time finding the giant reclining buddha.  I walked around the grounds in circles.  I knew it had to be somewhere... you can't really hide a 75 meter gold buddha.  And would you know it?  It was right at the entrance.  I had to laugh at my observation skills.  

Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho

What Pho