The Thai experience

To date, I probably received the most lavish birthday gift in my life: a trip to Bangkok. Well, it wasn't actually a gift. It just so happened that our family went to Bangkok for our annual family out-of-town vacation and it fell on my birthday (which I happen to share with my dad). That experience had a lot of 'firsts' for me. It was my first time to:

- ride a really big plane. The PAL plane was huge and had a business class section. We were in the economy class though but still...

- go out of the country. I've had my passport with me for about 3 years now and it was the first time it was actually used as a passport and not just a valid ID.

- interact with a foreign culture. The Thais (and all our southeast asian neighbors) are no different from us in terms of appearance but the similarity ends there. Their culture is totally different from ours.

- ride a right-hand drive vehicle. My dad always sat in front of the taxi and, well, suffice to say, it was weird seeing him in front, on the left side, and not holding on to a steering wheel.

- have trouble communicating. The Thais are not very proficient with English, and the taxi drivers we spoke with could only mumble English words and phrases at best. For those who could speak English, the accent was so thick it was practically gibberish. Also, they have difficulty pronouncing the consonants r, d, and t. I never got used to Max (our tour guide) calling my sister Claire 'Cleil'

- see buddhist temples. The grand palace was a huge complex of smaller temples, and it seemed the Thais did not like clean walls. All the temple walls had drawings or carvings. It was a bit annoying to enter some of the temples because they required us to remove our shoes.

- eat authentic Thai food. No one in our family really enjoyed the curry dishes we sampled. Like one order of pork, chicken, and beef curry. The sukiyaki-like dish was practically swimming in ginger, red pepper, black pepper, and holy basil (a kangkong-looking vegetable that was extemely spicy). However, we did enjoy a lot of the other non-curry dishes.

- see different types of buddhas. Among the most outstanding buddhas I saw were the emerald buddha (a green buddha, duh), the reclining buddha (a huge {and I mean huge} figure that was almost 50 meters long), and the golden buddha (a buddha made entirely of gold). It was also a big figure. According to our guide, the value of the gold alone is $30M but the fact that it was a 700 year old buddha increased the value to $7B!!! It's still a mystery to me how they got that thing inside the temple since it would not fit into any door even if you cut it in half.

- go on a river cruise. We rode a huge ferry boat that took us on a cruise along the whatsitsname river. The cruise lasted almost 3 hours and in that time, we probably passed by at least a dozen bridges and boats and ships of all sizes. I even saw a ship "talyer" (repair shop, for lack of a better term). It was in the middle of the river and inside it was a ship that was being repaired. The ship was lifted clean from the water so that workers could work on the bottom part of the ship.

- ride an elephant. Thailand is the land of the elephants after all. Seeing a creature that massive up close and personal was a wonderful treat. We even witnessed an elephant show where the elephants danced, took small bills from tourists, among others. Sugoi!

- go to a mall outside Pinas. The mall's name is MBK, and is probably Bangkok's biggest mall. How do I describe it...it's like placing Virra Mall inside Shangrila Edsa mall. The branded stores were just like the ones we have here in Pinas (and equally priced too). It's the tiangge-type stalls that were interesting. It's a shopper's paradise! It was so easy and enjoyable haggling with store keepers. I got a shirt for 85 baht, down from 99 baht. My mother was having the time of her life going from stall to stall and trying to get the best deals. It just seemed that everybody was so generous with their discounts.

- exchange cash for coupons. The stalls in the food court did not accept cash. Instead, there were designated areas where you can exchange your cash for coupons. Coupons were in 30, 10, and 5 baht denominations. It's a very efficient system. At the end of the day, we could eventually get a refund for all unused coupones. Furthermore, the system made sure that there were no unusual prices like 47 baht, 61 baht, and so on.

I had a really grand time in Bangkok. Hope I can go back there one day.