Far East Update 10 - Outside Bangkok - An Amazing Day - Nov 2012

Today (Tuesday) was an awesome day.

We hired a tour guide for the entire day. We knew that we did not have a lot of time here in Bangkok, the city is massive and traffic is horrendous and we figured that hiring an experienced tour guide would save time, maximize the experience for us and allow us to do it all in the relative comfort of an air conditioned car. 

We had looked on the web and found a number of english speaking tour guides listed on Trip Advisor. Most of them that I contacted recommended using public transit....ie; they meet you at your hotel and you proceed to cover the sites that you wish to see by train, subway and taxi. There were others who listed visiting temples as highlights of their day and stressed how important this would be in trying to truly experience Bangkok.

I then found Chob and company who was totally flexible. He gave us some ideas, we countered with the elimination of Temples and Thai food tasting, he substituted other non religious sites, and we arrived at a full days itinerary with an air conditioned car, driver and guide (George) who was excellent.

We were picked up at 7 am from our hotel. We drove out of the city for about an hour until we reached the town of Maeklong in the Samut Songkram province to check out an unusual market just 75km southwest of Bangkok. It is perhaps one of the most photographed markets outside of Bangkok – the famous and interesting and sometimes exciting Maeklong Railway Market. It is known as Talad Rom Hoop in Thai – which roughly translates to Talad=market, Rom=awning or umbrella, and Hoop=pulling down. You might think that it is quite a weird literal translation but you will see why it is known as a Market-Awning-Pulling Down market in this post.

For most of the time, Maeklong Railway Market looks pretty much like any other street market that caters primarily to the locals – the type where you go to the market to buy fruit, vegetables, meat and fish/seafood of all kinds. 

Our guide George walked us slowly thru the market stopping to point out fruits that might make it to our table on Rosh Hashana but many that are quite foreign to North America. As we discovered new fruits, he would buy us one to try and we were busy savouring the tastes while remembering to make a new Shehechiyanu each time. Rambutan, durian, mangosteen, longan, longsat, rose apple, jackfruit, etc., were all found in abundance in the market. The tastes were amazing. 

The Maeklong Railway Market is quite a busy market – with locals shopping for their groceries and tourists roaming around the market waiting for “excitement” to happen. The market is sheltered by low-hanging awnings/umbrellas and if you look closely, you are actually walking on train tracks.  The vegetables and fruits are all placed on carts and on canvas placed directly on the floor, very near these rails.

The excitement is that the train from Bangkok to Maeklong runs directly through the Market 7 times a day (7 days a week). In the morning, the train passes by the market 4 times, with the first time being about 8:30 am....and that is why we had to be picked up at 7 am....you do not want to miss the train's arrival.

About 4-5 minutes before the train is due to pass by the market, as the locals are shopping for their fruits and vegetables, the siren sounds to signal the train's arrival and there is a flurry of activity. The vendors will begin pulling their wares back from the centre of the tracks, they begin to pull back the low hanging awnings and umbrellas and practically anything that lies over the train tracks. The police arrive and warn people to move back because a full size locomotive is due to come barrelling towards you. 

In what seems like seconds, the market comes to a standstill, there is just enough of a clearing on each side (literally inches) to allow the train to pass, with the only people still moving about are the tourists and the photography enthusiasts as they planned the perfect angle to capture the train’s arrival into the Maeklong Railway Market.

The train then moves slowly and passes over the leftover items on the tracks and this is also the time you hear lots of clicks from all the cameras that line the route daily. Once the train is gone, in about ten seconds, the vendors push back the stalls and awnings into position and resume its business again as if nothing has happened – nobody gets excited or annoyed by it, after all the market has been here for generations way before when the railway was set up in 1905.

It is amazing to watch and it is now a major tourist site as bus loads pull in from Bangkok each morning to witness this spectacular event. Now you see why it is known as a Market-Awning-Pulling Down market. 

From here we had a short 20 minute drive to the area that is the centre of the Floating Markets. 

 Before we went to where all the boats and souvenir hawkers congregate, George walked us thru the village that lines both sides of this narrow river. There were no other tourists besides us in this area and George led us on a stroll past the houses that make up the village. Although many of the houses lining the canal in this area were doubling as shops and restaurants it wasn’t long before we started walking by private residences.

The front was open for most of these cottage like structures,  and we could see people inside lying down watching tv or sleeping. The typical home was a large open area with a few curtains that presumably were the sleeping areas with mosquito nets and the bathroom. they all were built from well weathered wood on stilts above the river. Their basement is the river and their "garage" where their boat is parked. Everyone has a boat. The homes look really rustic and yet each had tv, and internet service. 

As we paused in front of the local "makolet", a boat pulled up that was being rowed by a woman, who was selling the mangoes that she had picked from her tree that morning.

 We then stopped in front of an open doorway of a very simple home. Inside were seated an elderly husband and wife. George asked them if we could enter. they said yes, and as is custom in many thai homes and businesses, you remove your shoes when entering their homes. they told us that they were in their 80s and had moved into this home while in their 30s; 50 years earlier. They told us that they had 7 children and that one of their sons lived in LA. They spoke no English. We posed for pictures together. Their walls were lined with pictures that were placed in order of respect; the highest were of Buddha, then the King and Queen, and then their family.

A word about the King and Queen. They are in their 80s. He (born in Boston) is revered by all. Thailand is an absolute democracy. The kings is perceived as kind and caring for all his subjects. His picture is everywhere. Huge portraits of him line the highways and billboards are on all the streets and fronts of buildings. When we went to see the James Bond movie, before the movie begins, a video appears of the king and while the national anthem plays in the background, all rise and stand in respect till the video ends.

 When we left the home, George explained that he likes to take his clients here because it is the authentic floating village. We carried on walking for a while until we reached another pedestrian bridge where we crossed and started walking toward what George called the tourist floating village.  As we walked, George explained that he respected these people and their way of life because they know true peace and live a life without the pressures and time constrains of the city life. It was actually quite quiet and peaceful. 

When we reached the Tourist Floating Village, there were numerous souvenir stands, throngs of people like us all waiting to take a boat ride and get to really mingle on the waterways with the many boats whose owners were selling their market wares; fruits, souvenirs, flowers and cooked foods...there were whole restaurants on these small long boat canoe like structures. 

Again, George took us off the beaten track into some of the smaller canals so we could see how the locals lived from the vantage of the waterway.  As we passed by homes, we noticed various pulley systems that home owners would use to raise their boat out of the water or to be used to transfer your days purchases up into your home. It was extremely fascinating and a very interesting stop.

From here we began our return to Bangkok and our visit to the most popular site in Thailand, the Royal Palace. All of those images you have of Thailand, of gold leaf pagodas and spires and huge temples covered in glass, gold and coloured mosaics come to life as you enter the Royal Palace grounds. This massive area of 1 mile by 1 mile square in the centre of town, was built over the last few hundred years, by a succession of Thai kings called Rama 1 thru Rama 8. The only king who has not yet built anything is the current one. Interspersed among the various palaces are the pagodas which house the cremated ashes of the kings and Buddha. 

 This has to be the most lavish and ostentatious set of buildings that we have ever seen. We cannot wait to see the hundreds of pictures that we took during our hour long tour of the site. Along the way, George explained to us the history of the palace as well as some of the basics of Buddhism. We had told him previously that we could not enter any of the shrines because of our religion.

He is a Buddhist but is very upset at the turn that the religion has taken into idol worship. He was as much against avodah Zara as we are. He said that if you study Buddhism, King Buddha while he was alive, never allowed any images to be made of him and when he was about to die, his followers asked if they could make an image. He forbade it because he knew that they would then worship his image rather than do what he wanted which was to follow in his path of trying to better ones morals, ones character and ones respect for the fellow human being. It was only 700 years later that Alexander the Great who was enamoured with Buddhism, created the image of the first Buddha and now the idols are found everywhere, street corners, in front of shopping malls and departments stores, in every home etc. with people bring offerings of fruit and incense. It is, IMHO, real idol worship.

When we left the palace, we went for a along tour of Chinatown. It is one of the largest and busiest Chinatowns in the world. It was full of color and life with non stop business being conducted out of the thousands of stalls in the area; most of them wholesale suppliers of clothing, shoes, accessories, toys etc. 

From there we went to the Old Siam Market which is a Thai Silk centre. Again, hundreds of small stalls with the emphasis being on women's clothing. Fran bought a couple of items and had them altered on the spot. 

Our long and colourful day ended with our nightly visit to Chabad for Mincha and dinner. Again, delicious and cheap....no idea how they do it but we agreed that I we lived here (do not worry....we are not thinking of moving), it would be cheaper to eat out every night than to cook at home.

When we returned to the hotel, we packed and went to sleep early to prepare for our 4:30 AM wake up call and our 5:30 AM taxi to the airport for our flight to Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam, where we will be joined by Nachum and Sandy.

More tomorrow....

All the best

Fran and David