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Show Bangkok: Hotel bargains, Thai crafts, Buddha lure visitors to ancient city Will I ; , J 4! r Koyal Temple in Bangkok is a lavish example of Thai architecture. ar-chitecture. . by SHIRLEY SMITH Record contributing writer Editor's note: , This is the last in a series of ar- ' tides written by Shirley Smith that describes her recent travels through Greece, Nepal, Turkey, Hong Kong and Thailand. Bangkok, Thailand a strange jumble of east and west, modern and medieval hit us with a bang one night last November. The usually gentle and polite Thais seemed to lose their cloak of gentility at the airport air-port taxi stand and we stood eight of us and all our trekking gear from ' a recent hike through Nepal haggling haggl-ing over transportation and drenched drench-ed in just that few minutes from the ' everpresent humidity. One hour and probably too many ' bhat (the local currency) later, we " pulled up at the Vieng Tai Hotel in the Banglampu district. It seemed to be a veritable palace after the crude and crowded village tea houses that' had been our lodgings for four weeks in Nepal. ' ... Bangkok is a great city for hotel ? bargains. It is oversupplied at present pre-sent with luxury and middle-class hotels. Many of the latter are remnants rem-nants of the Vietnam war, when scores of hotels were built as R and R retreats for the military. Twenty-five Twenty-five dollars will buy a large room in a modern hotel with air conditioning, condition-ing, a swimming pool, a TV and a restaurant and that is a splurge. After our recent trek, we needed one. Next, we needed dinner. Bypassing Bypass-ing the typically sterile hotel restaurant, we ventured out into the street for a progressive meal from the sidewalk vendors and noodle stands. First, we bought small, sweetened crepes for five cents. Then we bought bowls of noodles with vegetables and shrimp balls for 50 cents and chicken and pork sates (small kabobs) with hot sauce for 15 cents each. Our stomachs were full, but our eyes still were greedy as we moved on to the fruit stand for sweet and ... juicy pineapple and a couple of fruits with flavors strange and exotic whose names we never knew. It was a culinary adventure for $1.50. The next day provided yet more adventure. There was : no sense sleeping in when the whole new and noisy city lay in wait. Besides, we I were still on our Nepali time clocks ( that woke us at dawn. t ' vided the unwary visitor with a choice of not-so-choice "bargains." But our destination was on the far side of the temple grounds a long, unasumming building labeled "School of Traditional Thai Medicine" read, "massage parlor." But before readers envision scantily clad beauties and dimly lit salons, let me put you straight. This . was authentic Thai massage, known as acupressure, and the masseuses were for the most part clad in long slacks and cotton blouses. And they had the strongest arms I have ever experienced. The "massage parlor" contained 18 mat-covered cots, lots of windows and a mixture of men and women clients all fully dressed in street clothes. We were the only non-Thais. For $5, we received an hour of deliciously excruciating pulling, pushing, stretching and kneading. We came away vowing to come back tomorrow. The afternoon was fading quickly, but we still had enough energy for a bit of shopping. Thailand, unlike - Hong Kong and Singapore, has very little to offer in the way of duty-free electronic and photography equipment. equip-ment. What it does have is a flourishing industry in manufacturing manufactur-ing that has grown out of traditional Thai handicrafts and village industries. in-dustries. Thai silks and cottons, silver and lacquerware, bronzeware, celadon, temple rubbings rubb-ings and gemstone jewelry now adorn more than one Park City person per-son and home. More shopping, more sightseeing trips on the klongs (waterways of the city) and visits to museums and our time was up. For our last night together our original Nepal group of 12 was now down to nine and would dwindle further fur-ther in the morning we decided on a real treat. We gathered at 5 p.m. for cocktails around the piano bar at the Oriental Hotel rated by many as one of the world's top hostelries. In our newly purchased finery, we hardly looked as if we had just spent 26 days hiking in Nepal. From there, we went to the Sim Mitr, the most amazing of restaurants, whose speciality is volcano chicken a whole chicken pierced in an upright position with a long skewer and set aflame at the table. A waiter for each two people, a bottle of Thai whiskey in front of us, a spangled stage with a band and singer all contributed to the perfect climax to our Asian interlude. By a leisurely 8 a.m., we were around the corner and down the block at the Hello Cafe a true traveler's meeting place. Heaping bowls of fresh fruit and steaming cups of strong coffee fueled us for the long walk to the National Museum near the Royal Palace. Bangkok became the capital of Thailand as recently as 1872 and there is scarcely a building older than that. Previously, the capital was a village known for its wild plum tree from which the city's name is derived. The city is thus an ever growing, ever changing combination com-bination of Buddhist shrines and temples, and modern skyscrapers and traffic clogged streets. Wat (the Thai word for temple) Phra Keo and its neighbor, the Royal Palace, are perhaps the most .. visited sites in Bangkok. And who were we to differ? The place en- thralls. From the Chohri palace with its Victorian European architecture i on the bottom and its classic Thai roof, to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha with its classic Thai ar- ' chitecture, it was a feast for. our jj uneducated Western eyes. We sat on the floor of the temple of the Emerald Buddha, careful not to point the soles of our feet at the venerated image of fine green jasper. There were beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid doors and very fine murals on the walls, and the perfectly formed tiny Buddha sat on its elevated stand high above our heads. Originally discovered in the northern nor-thern Thai kingdom of Chiang Rai in 1434, the Emerald Buddha, the Thais believe, will remain with them as long as they retain their independence. in-dependence. Having finished our sightseeing duties, we se ff for the best adventure adven-ture of all. Kciigion in Thailand is such an ordinary part of daily life that very secular things often take place within temple grounds. Our next visit was to Wat Po, the temple of the reclining Buddha.' The giant suppine buddha with the rather incredible feet beautifully inlaid in-laid with mother-of-pearl rests in aU his bulk each foot as high as a man at the far corner of the temple grounds. Around him, men played a noisy betting game and stalls pro- |
