I’ve just been reading the guide book we got from the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh and the page that fell open was about the King’s Coronation Procession. I’ll quote a section from it. “Day 2: According to the cult of the god-king that has been worshipped by the ancient Kings, in the morning, His Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni arrived to take ablutions which were blessed by both the Secular Patriach and His Majesty the King’s father and Her Majesty the King’s mother…”, or as we say in the new world “he took a dump and his parents blessed”. Sometimes ancient cultures should move with the times IMHO. Mum and Dad….your thoughts?
Our driver and guide arrived at 9am, to take the two of us on a City and Temples Tour. The tour included a visit to 3 temples – Wat Po, with the 46m reclining Buddha; Wat XX with the 5.5 tonne golden Buddga and Wat YY with the standing Buddha. First stop was Wat Po, which as well as the reclining Buddha is also famous for the Chinese and European statues that guard the entrance to the temple complex and the Chedi’s, which are the large tombs for the early Thai kings. The porcelain on the outside of the Chedi’s is brilliant – beautifully coloured and in very intricate patterns. The reclining Buddha also didn’t fail to impress. It is 46m long and 15m high, made of concrete, covered in gold leaf and has beautiful mother of pearl pictures on it’s feet. The guide was very good and told us many thing about Buddhism and Buddha.
We learnt that every Thai young man must become a Buddhist monk for at least 3 months to learn about Buddhism, life and how to be a successful husband. The analogy that the use in promoting team work in marriage was that of an Elephant. The husband is the front end of the Elephant – strong, purposeful, setting the direction for the marriage. The wife is the back end of the Elephant and together they must co-ordinate to move forward together successfully as a tea,. Elephant arse and I are back at our last Happy Hour wining and dining our way through another freebee evening.
After Wat Po, we had the choice of going to see the Golden Buddha or going on a long boat trip to the other side of the city to see how the people live by the river. The Long Boats are brilliant, with their big motors strapped to the back of the boat, the propeller shaft stretching way out behind and the driver swinging on an equally long pole on the other side of the motor to steer them.
We headed over the river to a canal on the other side and virtually no sooner had we entered the canal, than the boat slowed to a stop. Three women were sitting in little dug out canoes on the side of a quite large canal. One of them looked up, saw us and slowly paddled over. She announced to us the SHE was the floating market and did we want to buy any of her wares. It was obviously obligatory, so I was pleased that she had a Pepsi that we could buy. It was the world’s smallest Pepsi, bought from the world’s smallest floating market. When we were here before, the people seemed very dependent on selling at the floating market in order to be able to eat. These days, it seems more of a quaint ploy put on for the tourists. As our floating market paddled away, she reminded me of some of the planes we’d been on recently, as the boat was traveling low and slow in the water. I wondered if she’d got the job from Student Job Search – a bit cynical perhaps.
Continuing on our canal trip, with our gold plated Pepsi, we saw the same old houses that we’d seen the first time through, although they were in a much better state of repair, we didn’t see any children swimming in the river, and their was the odd very expensive house plonked in amongst them. Our guide told us that the people who owned the houses were very rich because the “land” they were on was worth a fortune and the rich people wanted to buy the land to build their riverside mansions on.
We were very impressed with the work that has been done on retaining walls on the river banks to prevent flood damage and also in the state of the water. It was much cleaner than it had been previously and apparently the government has done a lot of work to make it that way – well done.
We did see one very elaborate house, that our guide informed us belonged to the Navy Chief and that he could afford it because there was so much corruption in Asia. Given it was a military man’s house, I was kind of surprised at how loud he was making his claims.
After the boat trip, we were off to Temple YY to see the Tall Standing Buddha. This is a new temple and the Buddha is huge. See the photos and look at the size of the man’s feet – and they’re in proportion.
After the temples, the tour was basically over, but this is Thailand, so we just had to be taken to the Thai silk shop to buy a suit, or maybe a skirt for madam. We dutifully went inside, walked around, said no politely a thousand times to the man who was assigned to accompany us. As we left empty handed, our guide looked very down in the mouth. But of course, this is Thailand, so what trip would be complete without a trip to the local Jewelry shop. After the customary fizzy drink, 5 minute video about how and where the Thai gems come from it was into shopping central. I thought this would be a happier hunting ground, and so it turned out to be, because as luck would have it, we managed to find a perfect little sapphire ring that would compliment Anne’s other jewelry, so after an hour of looking, trying, fitting and waiting we emerged with a new ring for Anne and a much happier tour guide.
That being the end of the tour, we had agreed with the driver that he would drop us back in China Town rather than at the hotel, so after being dropped off there, we went for a wander round china town, checked out the market and eventually found a nice little Chinese restaurant to have a late lunch in.
Sometimes when you travel, you do absolutely fascinating things and at others it’s jus shear dross. We decided we would walk from China Town back to River City, which is the ferry terminal where we can catch the complimentary river ferry back to the Hilton. The walk back would have to win the prize for the Worlds most uninteresting walk. On the way we passed through whole suburbs that sold air conditioning ducting, then a suburb selling industrial sized water valves – I exaggerate of course, but it was the water valve district and there were at least 10 different shops.
Once back at the hotel however, there was just time for a shower before heading upstairs for our very happy HH. I think I’ll call it “A Night on Paris”.
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