Bangkok – MikeHawkey.com

So our time had come to an end. The Holiday was over. As mentioned yesterday, we got up before the crack of dawn and began our journey home. After the initial travels, we found ourselves on a plane to Thailand. I followed with interest as the plane made a 360 turn in the middle of the ocean, and then later was notified as we went further North to wait for our landing opening (they never mentioned the full circle!?)

With time to kill (3-4 hours) I endlessly wandered Bangkok airport. As far as airports go, its a pretty nice one. Stretching for seemingly miles, outside is decorated with various giant model/display areas. The architecture reminds me of the framing I made in old balsa planes (all skeleton like).

And then we were in the air. Our last Thailand Sunset. We’d been up for around 14-15 hours at this point. Being I dont sleep on planes, and we had ~12 hours to go in the air (and a stop at Australia yet), I prepared for a long day.

Landing back in Auckland, New Zealand was both a nice feeling, and a bump back to reality. I’d been awake about a day and a half, most of the time spent sitting in a plane, followed by sitting in a van, followed by sitting in airports. It took a few days to actually ‘land’. Here we are landing in NZ…The photo actually makes me look better than I felt!

And thats Thailand!

Ive got a few novelty pictures yet to post, but the travel novel’s over.

Catch you tomorrow.

Although I have countless more images from Bangkok, today can be the last, so we can move up north a little next time. Something I love to see in cities I have visited is the contrast between old and new. Todays top image is of just as such – a old rundown building (I think still inhabited) contrasting on the more modern cityscape. It reminds me of those movies where someone holds onto their house whilst the world grows up around it. I think here in Auckland (the central city area) land and building value is too high to see something quite like this (but to be fair, there are some old ones off main roads).

Like many cities, Bangkok offers a host of was to get around for the tourist. Walk (the most traditional), Taxi (sooo cheap on the metered ones when traffic flowing), Tuk Tuk(more expensive than taxi’s – I’ll do a feature on them some time) or the train network. I loved how the train (and walking) overpass spread across the city above the roads:

I was also intrigued by the seemingly hazardous mains power system (Bangkok much better than some other districts).

Farewell Bangkok

Part of our time in Bangkok was spent touring around some of the local temples. For those who don’t know, Thailand is pretty much a Buddhist country. For me, it was quite interesting to see these temples pepper potted around the city (and other areas of the country – particularly the northern part). The above feature Buddha being the Fasting Buddha (I only saw the one fasting one on my journey).

We looked at the different styles of Thai Buddha’s – in part different craftsmen, put also specifically Buddha at different stages of social peace or times of war. Some clues had when looking at the arms, bone structure of face and ‘ringlet’ size (for lack of a better term as I write) of the hair. Of the two above, the one on the right shows he is made in tougher times with likely neighbourly wars.

The Golden Buddha (above) was impressive to see. Story has it, during war times, he was covered in concrete to disguise that it was actually made of gold. Years (I’m guessing many) went by, and people forgot about the golden one. Then one day, then moving to a new temple the concrete cracked (imagine the instant ‘oh my god’ as you the mover crack this massive statue), but rather than a disaster, the gold was again revealed.

One of my favourites was the Reclining Buddha. This is one MASSIVE figure. Too big to move, renovations of the building had to happen around it.

Once upon a time temples were the schools or universities of the community. People went to further their learning and studies. One such example was the temple area of the Reclining Buddha. Small building (open sided ones) surrounded the main temple areas, all featuring teachings on the body, herbs, yoga, meditation, and general wellbeing. Some pretty cool stuff.

Probably one more day of Bangkok tomorrow I think!

After hours in the air, we set down in Bangkok. Time wise we landed some time after midnight, so the photos came the first day morning looking out over the cityscape. Exploring some of the town, we found ourselves in the World Centre (I think) – a bustling multi story shopping centre.

Some more tomorrow.

Tag: Bangkok

Farewell Thailand

Farewell Bangkok

Buddha of Bangkok

Nights in Bangkok part 1