Immersed in Thai Culture
Ashley Gray
We had been away, my boyfriend I, for six months. We were entering a new country as we had done many times before, only this was different. A different religion, a different language, a different way of life. We organised a taxi to the hotel and were bundled into a luxurious Mercedes, which suggested to me that Bangkok was not as poverty stricken as I had believed.
I was nervous in the taxi, it was the early hours of the morning and the traffic was heavy and overwhelming. However, I had become used to the amount of traffic and plethora of mopeds on the roads in Kuala Lumpur, so luckily it didn’t take me long to acclimatise to this new situation.
The first image I had of Thai culture and religion is still vivid in my head. Dotted regularly along the roadside were Buddhist shrineswith gifts of food and drink left for the monks who rely solely on gifts for sustenance. Eventually, we pulled up outside a hotel on Ratchadapisek Road, which, as the week went by, we discovered to be a very warm and welcoming place.
Once we had arrived in the hotel, checking in was surprisingly easy. The staff were extremely friendly and we managed to get through the process in broken English and were shown to our room. While in the lift we exchanged greetings with the bell boy who broke our bewildered and culture-shocked silence with a traditional Thai greeting known as the wai and then reverting to a very traditional, but nonetheless hearty hand shake. We had been in Bangkok for about an hour, and were already learning the way that things should be done.
After a decent night’s sleep we went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. The hotel was clearly aimed at business men and we appeared to be the only Western tourists around, not that we minded this, it was felt liberating not to be surrounded by tourists. It was amusing when considering the lengths some Western travellers go to escape the “tourist trail” (Leonardo Di Caprio in the film “The Beach” sprang to mind) while we had managed to free ourselves of it in the middle of a corporate breakfast room! I remember feeling slightly out of place on that first morning, not because we were made to, just because we were.
Being too terrified and out of our element to leave our hotel on the first day, we spent that morning studying the Lonely Planet guidebook. It was our bible and we had bought it in Suria KLCC shopping centre situated beneath the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. We planned what we wanted to do in Bangkok for the next seven days, though once again we found ourselves rather apprehensive at the thought of leaving the comfort offered by the hotel. We did however find enough to courage to go to the local shopping centres to buy some lunch and to have a look about. The surrounding area was interesting rather than beautiful. There was a large road surrounded by tall office towers, hotels and clubs. However we were pleased to discover that our hotel was very near to two metro stations which would make our excursions (when we finally found the courage) a little easier!
The next day we decided that we would jump into the metaphorical deep end and make our way across the city to see some of the famous temples. We walked down the large steps of our hotel and breathed in the air. I could feel a nervous excitement at the thought of our planned trek across the city. We would take the metro to the old part of the city and would then walk a few miles to the temples that awaited us. After convincing my boyfriend not to stroke any of the nearby stray dogs we took our first real steps in Bangkok. We got to Huai Khwang station and spent a while working out how to get a ticket using the self service machines. We were not issued with tickets as we were expecting, but small black disks which we realized, after much observation, were to be swiped at the barriers to board the train. We took the train to the end of the line at Hualamphong station. This journey which took around 15 to 20 minutes cost us 28 Baht, which equates to a mere 48 pence sterling. The metro system was only a couple of years old then and looked fantastic and I just could not help but compare the quality and the cost to English public transport.
The direct walk to Wat Pho was around two miles, however we wanted to make a few detours, especially to Wat Traimit which houses a solid gold Buddha that weighs 5.5 tonnes. It felt awkward walking into a temple where people were praying, but tourists are a regular part of life at the temples and we were universally ignored! It was quiet and the size of the statue was overwhelming. It was strange that in a country with such poverty there was an object worth more than all I will ever earn; I realized at that moment just how important culture in general and Buddhism in particular is to the people of Bangkok.
When wandering through the serpentine streets of Bangkok, one cannot help but be surprised by what jewels may be perched around the corner. There is always something to take a photo of, or something that simply amazes you nearby. Upon turning one corner, we were greeted with an enormous Chinese gate
on top of a roundabout which was completely unexpected!
Navigating our way around Bangkok was extremely confusing, though undeniably very fun. The walk was long, made longer and arduous by the high humidity; thankfully there were small shops everywhere selling drinks to keep us from drying out. We were both beginning to feel very hot and tired, and were walking along a very small path when suddenly and without warning a group of young Thai men and women threw a cold bucket of water over me and rubbed a peculiar cold, minty paste on to my face and neck. I was completely discombobulated and had no idea what to make of this strange turn of events when I realised they were all yelling ‘happy new year!’. I turned around to see what was happening to my boyfriend, and was quite pleased to see that he was receiving the same treatment as me, and was half smiling and, understandably, half wondering what the hell was going on! I thought that the application of mint to my face was the end of the ritual when we were then drenched once again with water. Once around the next corner and out of the way of our festive attackers, we wiped some of the paste off and looked at our guidebook: It was Songkhran (Thai New Year). It all made sense; what a novel way of celebrating the next three hundred and sixty five days!
It felt like a blessing to have been soaked while feeling so hot and tired, but it did make our clothes quite heavy which tired us out a little more! Luckily our camera still worked though our trusty street map was partially destroyed, though as luck would have the parts covering our route had not suffered: No harm done! After our initial drenching, we noticed that there was a multitude of people wandering around with water pistols, also vans of children and adults with huge buckets of water making everyone wet. The festival, we discovered, lasted for three days, and we were certainly more prepared for it on our next few excursions!
Across a bridge we saw huge white wall running along the road: We had made it to our main destination, Wat Pho, home of the largest reclining Buddha in South East Asia. Our journey had been hard, and undeniably scary but we had prevailed by believing in ourselves and summoning up some of the courage that resides within us all. In hindsight the experience is similar to those found when beginning university: An alien environment; countless unknown faces and the necessity to be brave and get on with the task in hand. We learned at that time that if one leaves one’s comfort zone, be it leaving to a new country or to a new city, with a little bravery the rewards are endless. Looking at the map we saw the miles we had walked; through slums, past stray animals and over open sewers. But when thought of in the light of the temple before us, these paled into insignificance. We could have turned back many times along the way, but we carried on, as one must when faced with challenges, and because of our persistence we had reached our goal.
The compound was huge and it took ages to find the tourists’ entrance, but once inside, it was breathtaking. There were ornate little statues all over the place, large statues of guards at the gates, and of course, Buddha images everywhere. The temple was very busy with tourists gawping, locals praying, and souvenier stands selling whatever they could to whomever they could. It seemed a shame that such an amazing place had to make space for tourists but of course if it did not, we would have never even seen over the enormous surrounding wall.
We eventually found our way to the main building where the reclining Buddha was housed. I respectfully put on a long sleeved t-shirt and we went in. I was awestruck by the Buddha, it was unfathomably enormous. After I had time to take that in, I stopped and looked around me, everything was so ornate, the walls were coated with glorious pictures as were the ceilings high over head. There was so much to take in and to contemplate.
We took our time walking around the Buddha before finding ourselves at the exit of the building. We left and wondered what to do next. We found a quiet place to sit down and to watch people going about what they were doing and then noticed another section to the temple which we had not looked in. Walking over we found that there was no one else there and with a degree of trepidation started to explore. We soon came across hundreds of Buddha statues, some of which were gold or gold plated, others which looked extremely old and worn but all had an air of stoicism about them: They belonged there no matter what they looked like. After looking around for what seemed like a long time, more people appeared and we moved on. Although brief, that time in the quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of the main section of the temple, has stayed clearly in my memory ever since.
After that day of throwing ourselves into Thai culture (and having it thrown at us), we felt more at home and relaxed in Bangkok. I felt more at home with myself: I had taken on a challenge and succeeded with great memories to show for it. I learned that when necessary I, and all of us, have strength inside us which can carry us through. The immersion I had been through changed my perception of an immersive experience: It is not something to shy away from for fear of being overwhelmed; it is something to take step by step, as that way one can find one’s way through anything, be it a crowded foreign city or a long winter semester at university.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.