Bangkok is a well spread out city. We had obtained the city maps and the briefings for a possible tour. Sightseeing is a process of assimilating culture. Out of the many listed sites of interest we chose the "the Grand Palace" as our destination recommended by the hotel concierge. An auto-rickshaw driver suggested that the best way to beat the traffic was to take a boat ride and he could help us getting a water-taxi. There was a lot of internal deals for the tourist service and we did not read it right. The auto-rickshaw driver did gain our trust through his knowledge of the city but caused us more expense on the water ride as we discovered later.
The river ride in Bangkok is interesting. The river name "Chao Phraya" may hide a two syllable Oriya/Sanskrit name like "Shipra". The phonetic distortions are strange and readings of the transliterations are stranger. All strange looking Thai names possibly have an Indian origin. The South Asian linguistics is an undeveloped discipline. The spoken Thai preserves the prosody and the syllables of Indian language. The Roman lettering does not have the equivalent sound. It appears to me that Thais accepted the words but expressed them in their accents. The words sounded different in time and now the transliteration tries to create a word for each syllable because of improper understanding. The river had piers at various intervals in order to accommodate small and large boats. There were many boats of different sizes running on the river, all driven by power engines. It is possible that the early sailors did come to the area navigating through this river. The city first developed on the western side of the river and then moved to the eastern side. After forty five minutes of boat ride we reached a docking area where we were asked to get down. There was a Buddhist temple and a garden on the bank. The palace was further back, it was about a mile's walk from the river. All gates to the palace were not open, we had to enter through the security gate where we were adequately checked and scanned. The ancestry of Thai kings is not studied. What is known is that they assumed the name of Rama. An earlier capital of Ayutthia does exist about thirty miles away from Bangkok. Apparently, the town could not be secured against the attacks by the Burmese and the King moved east, the river becoming a security check. The palace was designed as a mini city which was the model of the palace in the Indian scriptures. In spite of the July heat, the number of visitors in the area was quite large. Many groups were escorted by tour operators. A lot of Thai school children were also among the visitors. We bought our entrance tickets and were given a map to navigate. Through early research, the Chinese had discovered the technique of creating glazed porcelain tiles of various colors and shades. While blue and soft shades are popular in China, we saw distinctive colors of green, yellow, orange and black among the material used. The roofs were done in a reverse boat design like the pagoda architecture. The walls were of mortar and brick, and were stuccoed with the tiles. Various buildings existed apparently used for different purposes. An interesting building was the Temple of "Emerald Buddha" which was actually a prayer hall. The little emerald Buddha did grace the far wall. The transformation of Hindu faith to Buddhism is a peculiar phenomenon in these lands. Sometimes there would appear a forced placement of a Buddha image in otherwise a Hindu setting.
All the ground surfaces were paved with mortar, which was not a bright idea. Apparently the design was done by two British engineers who possibly imported the European style of paving the surfaces. The afternoon heat radiation from the mortar was excessive. A rain shower saved the day for us. We exited the palace to visit the surroundings and met the street hawkers. Street hawkers popular in all tourist places in the world do maintain their own culture. I noticed some very old ladies selling bags and beads. I wanted to check their story, but the language was a barrier. I and Prem did buy small items from the ladies. We also had our first sidewalk coconut water. It was relaxing. We wanted to buy gifts to carry. We came inside the old "chinatown" but the stores were closed. A person guided us to a gift shop a few blocks away. The ladies in the shop were friendly, but the prices were arbitrary. We did not prepare ourselves with an expected value. They claimed that it was the last day of a 50% discount, possibly a sales gimmick. I tried to round off further and the ladies had no problem. We bought some gems, teak products and some silk. We were given "certificates of authenticity" for the products. Later on I learned that the whole process could an orchestrated sales operation. The consumer has little choice in the market. We face sales gimmick everyday through false advertising! The ladies closed the shop at 9 PM. They did escort us to the subway stop to help us get back to the hotel. I was impressed by this token of kindness. We were familiar with the train system and could navigate back to the hotel. We stopped by in our Indian eatery for our supper and returned back to our room. Prem had an early morning flight back to the US and had to leave the hotel around midnight. A taxi was summoned and he rode to the airport. Many others from the Conference also had early morning flights and I met many friends in the lobby. I was glad to have made new friends in the subject of my heritage!
