Three Weeks With My Brother: 2.0

Feb. 2 -3, 2016

Whew!  It took a long time to get the blog caught up with the China trip, and now I have fallen seriously behind with what comes next.  Let's see what I can remember...

I was home for about a week while my three amigos spent some time in Bali and Chiang Mai.  We rendezvoused at Tara Place hotel in Bangkok on February 2nd.  Tara Place is a nice little hotel in a good location.  We took a short taxi ride to the Grand Palace, which was already teeming with tourists.  After Paul visited the rent-a-pants office to cover his legs (he was wearing shorts), we got our tickets and went inside.  This time, instead of hiring a guide, I grabbed one of the self-guided tour recordings for, I think, around 200 THB.  Just had to make sure to return it within two hours.  The recordings were very detailed and didn't really allow for much conversation, so I only used it sparingly.

It was another hot and humid day, but I enjoyed revisiting the Palace with someone who hadn't been before.  Some buildings were open that weren't the last time we came.  We got to see the palace guards in formation, and the Dusit Maha Prasat throne hall, which is used for deceased members of the royal family to lie-in-state.  A beautiful mother-of-pearl throne, which didn't look at all comfortable, was the focal point of this nearly-empty hall.  We also saw a weapons room on the ground level of the palace; it looked like they saved every weapon ever used in the kingdom!

Palace Guards

In front of Dusit Maha Prasat Hall

I set my phone alarm to make sure I returned the device in time, but we made it back no problem.  We were waiting outside the "return-a-pants" office, when a guy next to me said, "Samsung?"  I wasn't sure what I'd heard, so asked him to repeat, and he said again, "Samsung?"  Taking a moment to flip through my virtual Rolodex of possible interpretations, it soon dawned on me that my phone alarm was going off.  I didn't hear it, but the guy next to me did, and got tired of listening to it!

We walked across the street and found a little cafe to have lunch.  Like nearly every restaurant in Thailand, they had the standard club sandwich on offer.  It was good to get out of the hot sun. After lunch, we walked around the back of the palace grounds to Wat Pho and the Reclining Buddha, then took a taxi back to the hotel.

In the evening we walked from the hotel to my favorite Bangkok restaurant, Steve Cafe, on the Chao Praya River.  It looked much closer on the map, until we realized the map we were using only showed the main roads.  At least we got a good, up-close tour of this area, including a huge market that ran along the canal.  We eventually found our way to Steve, and it was well worth the effort.  The food was delicious as usual, and the view was such a pleasure.  We were also entertained by a group having a party just the other side of the glass from us.  At one point they started a gift exchange, and we enjoyed seeing what everyone got.  Reminded my of the Farmington Library Christmas gift exchange - sometimes it got pretty intense!

In the morning, we grabbed some breakfast, and decided we had enough time to hit a nearby museum before leaving.  Again, the walk was longer than we thought; this time because we had to take a rather circuitous route to get there.  We veered away from our route to get across a huge, busy intersection, then circled a big park that actually had a huge expanse of grass.  (I don't get to see grass much in these parts.)  By the time we reached the museum, Mick called to say he was here in Bangkok, ready to pick us up.  So we aborted our plan, and headed back to the hotel.

Grass!

Along the way, B & M spotted a couple of men using Sign Language in the park, and decided to stop and talk.  By the time we reached the spot, one of the men had already walked to the other side of the park.  When the first guy understood what we were saying, he told us to wait, and ran across the entire park to retrieve his friend!  The four signers really enjoyed speaking to one another, teaching each other their own signs (not all countries use the same sign language).  One of those chance meetings that proved to be a great encounter.  Really nice guys.

Cool graffiti on our walk back

Mick was waiting for us when we finally made it back, and we all piled in the car and headed to Pattaya.  We had Mick drop us at the market before he headed back to pick up Tim from work, so the guys could do some last minute souvenir shopping.  M was happy to find a suitcase to replace the one that had broken on the way to China, and B and P found some T-shirts and ornaments.  We went back to Central Festival mall to cool off and had some delicious lebanese food at the Palace Restaurant.  Later we enjoyed some refreshments at Drift on the upper level of the Hilton.  It was quite hazy, so the view was not so spectacular, but still enjoyable.  We ordered pizza for dinner when we returned.  In the late evening, Bob and I went with Mick to pick up my brother, Ron, and his lady, L, from the airport.  We waited quite a long time for them, and worried that we'd missed them.  But we eventually found each other, and the mini-Rourke reunion had begun!

The view from Drift - our condo is in the group of tall buildings left center

**Thanks, travel buddies, for your awesome photos!