BKK . . . . The Trilogy

We didn’t get to Chiang Mai for the Loy Krathong festival, but we were in Bangkok for it. It is a festival that is celebrated all over Thailand, but the difference is that in Chiang Mai in addition to floating the Krathong on waterways, they also set the laterns into the sky. Someday I will make it to the north for that! We were in Bangkok for Loy Krathong last year, but simply observed. This year I decided to participate. Krathongs are like baskets that are floated down waterways for various reasons among them being to make an offering, to make a wish and to set your worries from the year in the basket.

There were different types of krathongs that could be made or purchased. The most traditional had banana leaf baskets with flowers, candles and incense.

We weren’t sure what these ones were made of, so we simply referred to them as the “Cheetos” kathrongs.

There were also some “creature” ones made out of bread.

I chose a simple one with a coconut husk basket, a flower and later added incense.

It hasn’t been a bad year, but it has been a weird one for me and there were some worries and negativity that I needed to place in my basket. I got to the edge, placed it on the river and watched it . . . . . dump upside down extinguishing my light and incense! B-rod assured me that the point was that your worries were washed away the second it was released and this way the worries and negativity dumping into the water would be washed away even quicker!

This was the biggest krathong we saw and it was quite the ordeal for this lady to get it into the water. She must have had a lot of worries to place in there! Hers nicely floated away though adding to the light on the water.

B-rod didn’t participate in the festivities, but maybe he should have. After discovering that he left all of his sunglasses (he discovered he had a fourth pair of identical glasses the night before we left) at home, we hopped in this tuk tuck where while he was taking pictures (with his phone and not our camera because the battery ran out and he didn’t bring the charger because it was supposed to be able to charge through our USB chord (turns out it can’t and the manual is indeed incorrect)) his hat (which was protecting his head after his brand new haircut) flew off and is most likely currently being enjoyed by some Thai on a motorbike.

We missed the opportunity to go to a floating market the last time we were here, so we decided to do it this time. We could have gone on our own, but chose to do a tour through “withlocals.com” instead. This company has local people who put together the ideas for the tours and it is only local people who know and have lived in the area that conduct the tours. We met Moddy, an energetic well travelled Thai lady at a subway station and made our way to the market. She walked us through the land market where she introduced us to different foods and we had the opportunity to ask questions.

We then got on a paddle boat to go through the market.

This particular market is a market where the vendors work, but they also live on various properties along the canal. We started by going through the market.

We then made our way through the neighbourhood.

They even have mail boxes there!

Moddy was so excited to see this lizard as she says they are rare (B-Rod and I swear we have seen many of them!) The luck must have worked because later in the day, when we went to ride the sky train, someone came by to give all three of us free day passes.

We left the boat and saw the market from the vantage point of land.

This is cool!! Later that day as we were walking back to our hotel, one of the busy roads we were walking along (one that not that long ago was filled with cars and traffic) suddenly became absolutely quiet and car free. Cops suddenly dotted the road and you could hear radio communication happening. It also became really quiet (even the birds seemed to stop chirping). There were only a handful of us walking along the street and those that wanted to cross were told to stop. A motorcade of cars went buzzing by and the Thai lady standing next to me said “my king” We were so close, that we could actually see him! There were about a dozen BMW Police motorcycles, followed by a few Mercedes S Class cars, then the ’60s Rolls Royce he occupied, then another 25!!! More Mercedes (All brand spanking new and covered in antennae), then a few more bikes. They went by at around 80km/h, so it actually went by pretty quickly. It was actually a really cool, unexpected experience! . . . Which we actually caught twice, although the second time was slightly more expected.

That’s it for our Bangkok adventure. I would definitely come back. There’s so many things I’d still like to do here, it’s pretty cheap for accommodations and food, I never felt threatened and unsafe and now that we’ve figured out the public transportation there’s so many different areas and neighbourhoods to explore. I’m not quite done with you yet Bangkok!

2 Comments