HANOI, VIETNAM – Brrr, it’s chilly here in Hanoi today. Especially after spending the last three days in Bangkok, where it was sunny and 80-plus degrees (27 degrees Celsius) and we could bring our shorts and sunscreen out of hiding for a change.
Now it’s back to wearing silk long underwear and a sweater, with the hope that it might get up to 60 by the afternoon.
Three days is not nearly enough time to explore anyplace the way Melanie and I like to, but we needed to leave Vietnam because our tourist visas were about to expire.
We originally wanted to extend or renew our visas while staying in Hanoi, but we were repeatedly advised that the best plan was to leave the country briefly and get a new visa-on-arrival upon our return.
So we booked a three-day trip to Bangkok.
By the time you factor in the cost of our airfare, hotel room and the higher cost of everything in Bangkok, it was certainly not cheap, but we had been itching to go somewhere, and the thought of going someplace warmer was enticing.
We wanted to get a feel for the city
During our visit we wanted to try to get a feel for the city, and the short timeframe meant we would not be running all over the place trying to squeeze in all the top tourist sites.
The hourlong trip from the airport to our hotel took us on Bangkok’s Metropolitan Rapid Transit (MRT), then onto the elevated BTS Skytrain which afforded us a bird’s eye view of traditional Thai architecture, temple spires reaching skyward, moated compounds filled with banana palms, modern high-rise apartments and office buildings, canals and rivers, and as many congested highways as I’ve seen in any American city.
Based on numerous recommendations we found online, the one must-see site in Bangkok seemed to be the Royal Palace. It was on everyone’s list. Plus, we could get there via a water taxi on the Chao Phraya River, another most-recommended activity.
I must admit that I was at first taken aback by the ticket price at the Grand Palace – 500 Baht, around $15 US. Living in Hanoi these past few months has made me even more of a cheapskate than I already was; I’ve been spoiled by admission prices for Vietnamese museums and other venues at mostly under $5, sometimes only $1 or so.
But, even from outside the bright white walls of the Palace compound I could see that we were headed into something that promised to be spectacular. I forked over the cash for our two admissions.
We had barely cleared the first gate when I was already gasping at the lush colors, jaw-dropping opulence, and over-the-top decorative embellishments. The entire site was a spectacle to behold, with more eye-popping extravagance around every corner.
Our original plan was to visit the Grand Palace, then explore the Wat Pho temple located nearby. After that, if there was still time, we would cross the river to the temple at Wat Arun, another oft-recommended site.
Alas, the Grand Palace nearly did us in. After three hours on the Palace grounds it was time for lunch and a retreat from the visual overload and crowds of people. Our final stop in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha was particularly intense, with a non-stop crush of people carrying us through the packed space. We decided our visits to Wat Pho and Wat Arun will have to wait until another time.
My camera got a thorough workout during our Palace visit, and the boat rides to and from the Palace yielded even more pictures. By the time we returned to our hotel, my memory card was packed with some 400 new photos (You can see a small sample on our Facebook page).
Our mornings and evenings in Bangkok were spent exploring the neighborhood around our hotel, where a busy street market was just around the corner. Packed with stalls offering a colorful array of exotic fruits and vegetables, a variety of merchandise, freshly-cooked meals packed for takeaway or eating on-site, the street was crowded with people, motorbikes, tuk-tuks and the occasional taxi or car inching its way through the teeming mass of shoppers.
Attention shoppers, now on sale in section 27…
The day after our exhausting Palace tour, Melanie and I made a half-day excursion to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, billed as the largest market in Thailand. It certainly turned out to be “as advertised” with anything and everything offered for sale somewhere among its 15,000 vendor stalls.
And even though we’re not buying anything we don’t absolutely need these days, we still came away with a few new acquisitions. Sometimes you just gotta have it, right?
One more high point of our quick trip was a stop at the Sri Maha Mariamman Hindu Temple, just a couple blocks from our hotel. Mel and I wandered through the space where visitors were praying and making offerings of fruit, flowers and incense at the various altars located throughout the temple. Our visit coincided with an evening prayer that included a long, fast-paced chant recited in unison by three robed devotees.
Dating from 1879, the small corner space is densely packed with some of the most colorful representations of Hindu Gods and Deities you could imagine. It was every bit as visually awesome as the Grand Palace, though on a much smaller scale.
All of this was crammed into one long weekend, Thursday morning to Sunday evening, Hanoi to Bangkok and back. Whew!
Now, with new yearlong visas in hand and the travel bug reignited within, we’re already thinking about our next trip – somewhere in this beautiful country of Vietnam.
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Love reading about all your travels. I like your perspective and the pictures that you post of your events of the day. Keep enjoying yourselves and posting your travels!
Leah McNeill-Hiller