Is it possible to know exactly where you are and still be "lost"? Can you be helplessly headed in the wrong direction, and not really care? Yes, on both counts. After cooking class at The Blue Elephant on Monday (another great day, that finished with the owner coming to meet us and bringing out samples of some of his other specialities -- always a bonus when talking with Food People) a bunch of us decided to visit two of the temples we had missed earlier. Since they were both "just" one more SkyTrain stop, then an easy boat hop up the serpentine Chao Phraya River -- what's to go wrong? The four of us (Andrea, Janet, my wife Clare and me) got some All-Day passes and climbed aboard. The Journey of a Thousand Memories begins with a Single Innocent Step............
The temple at Wat Po is listed as a center of massage, but the real spiritual release comes upon experiencing the statue of the Reclining Buddha! This huge golden Buddha, reclining serenly on one side is so long that it fills an entire (long!) building, and so immense that it completely dominates your spirit while you are in its presence. Along the back side are dozens of metalic "penny pots" to deposit small offering coins. The continuous tinkle of coins dropping creates an aural peace all of its own. If the Next Life can be this serene, then I'll welcome it when it comes, especially if I can have a gang of penny pots of my own, to tinkle away eternity.
Completely refreshed, we took a short ferry across the river to the temple of Wat Arun, the Temple of The Dawn. Showing both Hindu and Buddhist influences, it features a hair-raising set of outside "stairs" -- almost vertical high-steppers that require both hands on the railings and concentration at all times to keep from slipping and falling to certain death. Those Heavenly Penny Pots can wait, I don't want to break my neck when I've still got half of our Thailand trip left to go. Carefully, step by step, we inched our way back down -- besides, it was time to catch the boat back to our starting pier and get home. Little did we know.
Back on the boat, it filled with commuters and school kids, and took off up river in a blast of whistles. Up river. We're supposed to be going down river. Surely it will spin around, amid the incredible traffic of hotel ferries, cargo barges, military patrol boats, houseboats, and those great "longtail boats" of James Bond and Amazing Race fame, with a car engine mounted up in the air next to the pilot and a 30 foot-long drive shaft with propeller that gets dipped in and out of the drink to power the careening boat through traffic. But we never turned around. Under a couple of major traffic bridges, then under that great Rama 8 asymetrical syspension bridge, ever north past pier after pier, probably headed for Myanmar. I was still blissed out from The Reclining Buddha so I was oblivious to our long-ways-from-home dilemma, actually amused by the whole predicament. Until the lady boat conductor finally came over and politely asked "Where you going?" We proudly displayed our Ride-Free-All-Day passes, but the day was rapidly coming to a close, so she instructed us to "get off next pier, catch other boat". Sounded good to us, so we finally got a southbound boat, but by now the wind and current had changed, so we were taking on periodic splashes in the face. Darkness was settling and the boats all had their beautiful lights on, and eventually we Returned to Go. A reverse SkyTrain ride home and we were back safe and sound. And wet. Just one more great batch of memories of a Bangkok environment that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. More interesting experiences, and more great food memories coming up. Tomorrow we cast off again -- up river, down river, I don't care.........
No comments:
Post a Comment