Leaving Mandarin Oriental never easy...

So the day has come to leave Mandarin Oriental Bangkok to Chiang Mai-Northen part of Thailand. This wasn't easy.. and even painful...Our stay was flawless...it was amazing...it was a paradise. Thank u Mandarin for amazing accommodations, incredible service and amenities, but why why why to charge 20$ for internet per day???!!! :)

New wing Lobby:

Eat whatever floats....or all the roads lead to falafel

Our next day was well spent at the Damnoen Saduak -floating market outside Bangkok. The market operates on the weekends only and accumulates the most delicious thai food you could possibly crave. All the food is being cooked on the boats by locals and sold to the wondering tourists and thais as well.
Observation:
it is really hard to express the colors and the vibe with an amateur camera, Nikon d90 would be more then appropriate here.
 

Thailand- the land of smiles or the land of smells?

Rudyard Kipling, "The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it"

Yes Thailand smells. No matter where u go, u will smell it. The smells can differ from the most wonderful ones like orchids and lemongrass to food smells( which can be also very different) to literally garbage. And it is not hard to imagine that money smells like orchids and poverty like a dried salted fish. Though there are some rich people in Thailand (about 40%), there also some poor ones that in a good case live with 200 Baht per day(6$).

:(

this smells!

Bangkok continued...

After visiting the grand palace we proceeded to Wat Pho-The reclining Buddha or the "Chilling Buddha" (Donny's invention). Gold Plated Buddha is 46 meters long and 15 meters high, and is designed to illustrate the passing of the Buddha into nirvana.
So here it is- pretty cool:


An Observation: Thais love their king, no matter what they do or how they live, everybody talks about their king with a great appreciation and love, phenomenal.

Fried banana stall-we love the king:


Wat Arun-the Temple of Dawn, a representative of Cambodian style architecture was the next stop:


the view from the temple:

after visiting the temple, we got nicely accommodated at the Deck cafe on the other side of the river, sipping cold drink and enjoying the view.
The Deck,
Arun Residence,
36-38 Soi Pratunokyung Maharat Rd tel: 02 221 9158

in btw the temples we have passed by the amulet market where u can find an amulet for any occasion in life!!! they are sold in different sizes, colors,shapes and supposedly will protect u from anything u need. We didn't buy any as we are an amulets of each other :)






exhausted after a long day, we headed to a local spa place and got an amazing one hour massage for literary 15$ each.

An Observation:

after all these and another temples to come, we were amazed by the level of detail and ornamentation they include! Dear fellow designers and architects, it is incredible! Today we are in a new age of design when minimalism and simplicity ,technology and systematical approaches prevail everywhere, but this ones are unbeatable! And sadly or not, no technology can beat a cheap labor. this elaborated designs represent an enormous,incomprehensible,tedious work that is done by human hands, and it proves again, THE GOD IS IN THE DETAILS!

Buddah exhaustion or the God is in the details

Four days in Bangkok passed momentarily, we came out to conquer the temples and visited floating markets. Exhausted from the extensive day wonderings, evenings were spent in between high class bars for drinks and street markets for food. Occasionally passing by Patpong market-the red light district of Bangkok, we got to know about all the possible tricks one can do with his male/female distingwishers................................We escaped right away!

taking boat express to the temples:


The Grand palace and the Emerald Buddah .

Emerald Buddah is the most valued temple in Bangkok located on the grounds of the grand Palace which history dates back to 17th-18th -the fall of Ayuthaia kingdom and the rise of a new one by Rama I at the location of a nowdays Bangkok . The Emerald Buddah temple was purposely build by king Rama I to house a Buddha image carved from a large solid piece of green jadite (jasper). Too small to see on the pic ,but this is what it is about.



Indian Style Stupa, all gold!



oh yeah...by the way it is all bare foot



were caught by the rain , which can also be very romantic!!!

there is so much more to show, but have to escape to the silk factory, to be continued....

The land of smiles makes you smile

On the first day of our arrival to the "City of Angels" the Fabulous Journey decided to do nothing but indulge in a nice spa and rest. And since honeymooners usually get all the possible upgrades, treats and amenities, indeed, everything was fabulous.

few observations:

It is winter and it is 85F- how do u people, live through summer??
Everybody is smiling at us -is that because we are so white and tall? :)
Fruits are delicious, kinds are endless, we don't know them all - our pick: Passion fruit
We start to see our friend Jintana in every second thai person we look at ..!

Sawadeeka!