I was tired, but may as well get used to the time rather than give in to jet lag! After the Weekend Market, we went down to the Grand Palace complex – Marilee had done all of this with other visitors but hadn’t been in a while (or maybe she hadn’t been since she was a visitor herself ten years ago; at any rate, we didn’t do things she hadn’t done until towards the end of my trip). Wat Phra Keo, on the grounds, is the holiest site in the country. It is home to the Emerald Buddha – a little statue made of jadeite. He wears different outfits – one for summer, one for winter, one for the rainy season – that the King changes. The Palace itself is off limits, even though the King doesn’t live there, but the grounds have some spectacular decoration. We also went to the museum (Marilee had not done that!) – it contains the Emerald Buddha’s other outfits and some building chunks pre-restoration.
I should talk about the King. He is beloved! As in Morocco, his picture is everywhere – maybe even more than in Morocco. His birthday – which was the day before I got there – is a national holiday. He is a photographer so is often shown with his camera. The Queen was a beauty in her time and is often in the pictures with him. He’s 86, I think, and his health is deteriorating, and people are worried about succession – there’s a Crown Princess in addition to a Crown Prince (Thailand has never had a ruling queen so this is something of an admission that the Crown Prince may not be up to the job). Again, I feel I got to Thailand at a good time – not sure I’d want to be there without this King! He’s been ruling for about 60 years. People in Thailand wear different shirts each day of the week (although now yellow and red are being used by the opposing political factions, so sometimes people don’t wear them when it’s their turn in the rotation), often a polo shirt with the royal crest. One day the King wore pink (later he said it was just because he liked the color) and the next day pink shirts were available everywhere and everyone bought one! Every morning and evening at 6:00, public places play the King’s anthem, and everyone stops and stands at attention. I was never up to hear it in the morning (I hear it’s fun to watch the tai chi groups) but I was in the Skytrain a couple of times for it – a catchy yet imperial tune.
After the Palace we went back on the river boat to the Oriental Hotel, which might be the finest hotel in the world, for their High Tea. The Oriental is where Anna Leonowens stayed when she first got to Siam. The usual room where tea is held, the Author’s Lounge (authors who have stayed there include Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene), was being used for a wedding, so we went upstairs to the Normadie Room restaurant and had a view of the river, with its many varied boats and barges going by. You could have traditional English tea (that is, the goodies) or Thai tea – we had one of each and split everything in half! The photo in the April 24 entry is from that tea. It was everything it should have been – we stayed for hours! We then went to a night market (a bunch of vendors lined up along a street) – but I was more attracted to a nearby Bookazine. I had been told that English bookstores were all over the place in Bangkok; that was one of the things I missed in Morocco. I love bookstores!
No comments:
Post a Comment