Thailand

THAILAND

Laem Chebang and Bangkok

From Jakarta we headed north out of the Java Sea to Laem Chebang in the Gulf of Thailand.
Since Bangkok was two hours away, the first afternoon we went to a small nearby town which had a name but it escapes me at present. (Not a place I’d necessarily recommend to other travellers). The local Ship’s Agent, Ming, arranged for a cab for five crew members to go to a nearby beach & bar town and then offered to take Martha, Doug and I in his own car to do a little shopping and a glimpse of small-town Thailand. We’d hoped to find a computer store to buy a replacement fan for the laptop but no one there had parts for DELL. Another goal was to find a silk jacket similar to one I bought when we were in Thailand on our honeymoon in 1991 (it was lost a few months later when my luggage went missing on a flight from Berlin to London). Well, the world has become very Westernized and there was only one silk shop (the last time they were on every street) in the town. The shop owner offered to make the jacket in two days but we didn’t have two days.

The Captain arranged for two vans the next day and leaving at 7 AM fourteen of us made the two-hour trip to Bangkok for a day of sightseeing. First the Royal Thai Palace, the Temple of Dawn (we thought of you, Dawn), a fascinating trip through the canals on a long tail boat (very low to the water). This city is sometimes referred to as “the Venice of the East.” Walking through streets lined with market stalls selling fruits & vegetables, fans, parasols, Buddhas of all shapes and sizes, masks, carvings, smelly dried squid and fish of every shape and size, and of course t-shirts, we really got a taste of Bangkok. (Except for the t-shirts which are of course in every town and city, large and small, all over the world) Lunch was literally “on the street” where a long table and stools were set up between two large parked trucks with cars and motorcycles moving past us. The cook had his “stove” set up on the sidewalk and he made a show of preparing his two specialities - either a rice dish or a noodle dish - in a wok over an open flame. Very picturesque and a good lunch. Served with a local beer.

We made a very vigorous walk up many steps to another temple on a high hill where we saw locals and monks praying to budda in various representative poses. We also visited the huge gold reclining Buddha whose feet were over fifteen feet tall.

The Marble Temple was perhaps, as Martha commented, “one temple too many” as everyone by then was very hot and tired. The humidity here is oppressive and we look forward to heading to cooler weather after our next stop in Malaysia.

Our last stop for the day was an air conditioned shopping center (quite modern) where we enjoyed an iced mocha frappe at Starbuck’s (yes, they’re everywhere) and saw familiar stores such as Izod, Nautica, Nike, Louis Vitton, Coach, as well as KFC, Annie’s pretzels, Dunkin’ Donut and Baskin Robbins ice cream. We could have been anywhere in this very small world.