Mom and Roger Visit Thailand - Bangkok (part 3)

After a short flight, a little mix up at the airport, i.e. Roger was certain that there would be a guy waiting for us holding a Horstmeyer sign, (um, there wasn't, in fact there was no pre-arranged transportation at all) and a 30 minute taxi ride, we arrived at the Royal Orchid Sheraton in Bangkok. Roger made sure that the Bangkok leg of our trip was luxurious, five star luxury to be exact. We had big fancy rooms with soft beds and an amazing 16th floor view of the city. After we checked in, we grabbed some lunch in one of the five star restaurants and then each couple headed off to their individual rooms to take a five star nap. And nap we did, well at least Neils and I did. We were completely exhausted by the hectic pace of the first two thirds of our vacation. By the time we all met up again, it was early evening. We took our first Sheraton river ferry to the sky train and headed out in search of a little shopping. After a few hours, we headed back to the Sheraton, grabbed some dinner and went to bed.

Our second day in Bangkok started bright and early. We grabbed some breakfast from the monstrous breakfast buffet and then met our tour guide in the lobby. As luck would have it our tour guide, Janya, is originally from Nakhon Si Thammart and she was thrilled to learn that Neils and I live and teach there.

Our first stop of the day was Wat Pra Kaew and the Grand Palace. Since Wat Pra Keaw is considered a holy place, you cannot enter wearing shorts or tank tops, so we had to rent appropriate attire. Mom and I rented sarongs, Roger and Neils rented pants. Now see, this is Asia, where people are generally not very big and I'm not sure if you noticed, but Roger is a pretty big guy. This meant that the selection available to him was slim and he ended touring this holy place in these.
  

Big Rog was certainly getting noticed. At one point Neils caught some other tourists snapping pictures of him when he wasn't looking.

Neils and I have been to the Grand Palace and Wat Pra Kaew before, but it doesn't get old. Both are located on a very large compound and are absolutely gorgeous. When you think about the fact that they were built over 200 years ago, which means all of the work was done by hand, combined the vast amount of incredibly intricate of detail on each building really astounds you.

One of the guardian statues

A door to one of the buildings

Tile mosaic that decorates the outside of one the buildings.

From the Grand palace we made a stop at a famous gem shop, where my mom bought a beautiful sapphire ring. Then we headed to a famous tailor shop, where a smooth talking sales man convinced Roger to buy seven shirts.

After getting Roger measured and picking out seven different fabrics we headed back to the hotel. We grabbed a late lunch and a little nap.

Before we knew it, the van was back to pick us up and we headed out for the Siam Niramit show. Bangkok has approximately 16 million people living in its metropolitan area, this makes for serious traffic on a Friday night. After one and half hours in the van we finally arrived at the theater. The Siam Niramit show is a Vegas style show about Thai history and culture. It boasts the largest stage in the world. The show was really impressive with amazing effects and extras. Roger slept through most of it, but woke up to catch the bit about the repercussions of misbehavior according to Thai Buddhists, which made for some interesting conversation on the way home.

Mom and I "wai"ing with some of the performers from Siam Niramit

After the show, our commute home was thankfully much shorter, we grabbed some dinner and headed to bed.

The next day, over another fabulous buffet breakfast, we planned our attack. Roger needed to head back to the tailor for a fitting of his shirts. Then he, Mom and I had some serious shopping needs that hadn't yet been met. Neils opted to stay at the hotel for rest and relaxation. Our drive to the tailor was long but we had good conversation and learned a few interesting Thai factoids from our driver. Once at the tailor, Roger suggested a few changes to his shirts and was then talked into buying four pairs of pants. Well, you can't very well have seven super stylish custom tailored silk shirts and then have no pants to wear them with, now can you?!? Luckily he escaped buying some sort of scaly shoes, but probably only because they didn't have anything in his size.

From the tailor we headed to MBK, a huge market type mall, where we spent the rest of the day and a large amount of money shopping. We shopped for presents for Mom and Roger to bring home and Neils and I got most of our Christmas shopping done. It was a fruitful day, but extremely exhausting!

After shopping, we headed back to the Sheraton to meet a guy from the tailor shop for Roger's pants fitting. He tried on each pair of pants and each shirt. I must say, he looked pretty good in everything except the fireworks shirt. Ha!  By the time the fitting was over it was about 8pm so we headed down for a our free buffet dinner. Now, we should take a pause here. We had been saving this buffet dinner for this particular night. We had witnessed it the first night we were there and I was particularly excited. There was all sorts of food AND a huge dessert section that included creme brulé. However, on this particular night it was Indian themed, with not nearly as much appetizing food and NO creme brulé. It was a tragedy, but I pushed through.

Sunday was our last day. Mom had said that she wanted to keep it low key and just spend a lot of time hanging out. We grabbed some breakfast and the first thing on our list was a Thai massage. Unfortunately the place that we had scoped out could only do two people at a time so the boys went back to the hotel, while Mom and I got massaged. Two hours later, relaxed and invigorated we headed back to the hotel. We found Neils but Roger was MIA. It was past lunch time, so Mom, Neils and I headed down to the bar. On the way, we found Roger on the computer. Having the whole group reunited, we sat down for a nice lunch.

After eating, Roger suggested a canal tour, which we were able to book right from the hotel. We boarded a long tail boat and headed out for our next adventure. It may sound pretty obvious, but a canal tour takes you around the city via canals and allows you to see certain parts that you would not other wise get a chance to see. It is quite interesting, however it is important to note that Chao Phraya is not clean by our standards of clean and some of the interesting places you see are shacks, straight up. About halfway through our canal tour it started to rain, pretty hard, and the umbrellas that our boat driver had were not entirely effective in keeping us dry. Combine that with the stench of the river in some places and well, we were ready for the tour to be over before it was actually over.

A slum along the the canal tour

Beautiful wat along the canal tour

After we dried off and changed, we spent the rest of the afternoon/evening hanging out in Mom and Roger's room playing Farkle. We ordered room service and just spent time together.

The next morning, Mom and Roger were ready to head to the airport at like 2am. We met them in the lobby a little sleepy eyed and said our goodbyes. I think Roger was ready to get back to his family, because he was long gone while mom and I were still hugging.

After they left for the airport, Neils and I headed back to bed. When it was time, we got up, had one last warm shower, ate one last breakfast buffet, and said goodbye to five star luxury.

It was a really great vacation. My mom must have agreed because she was talking about her next visit before she left. It was a nice little piece of home and family that helped us recharge our batteries. It was just what I needed.

I hope you are well.