Borrow
In the Grand Palace, Bangkok, a mysterious edict near the entryway. Whatever could they mean?
P.s. We saw perfectly marked ATM’s everywhere. Is this the rogue machine that calls a spade a spade? Is this the ‘rage against the machine’ machine?
Bhumisparsh
At the UNESCO heritage village of SukhoThai, the seated Buddha in bhoomisparsh mudra. Elegant, graceful, serene. Nina and I got there early is, on a scooter (with helmets, thank you very much) and explored much of the old ruins on foot. A lot of people had the same idea though. We saved the best for last and although it got hot, at least the crowds had thinned. We got a private audience with many Bodhisattvas and Buddhas.
The audio guide was useful, but the site map was confusing. And no one told us there was a separate entry fee for the other older park, but we snuck into a section of the old kilns anyway. I think two nights in the city were plenty, and we stayed in such a fantastic Ruen Thai hotel, made in the old Lanna style with solid teak, structured around a swimming pool. Great breakfast, helpful staff, free bicycles, sturdy tree furniture. And a bus stand pickup we somehow missed. Oh well. Still a superlative layover.
Heaven knows I have a backlog of photos to blog but fresh from a hectic eco/immersion-tourism trip to Orissa, I have a total Oriya hangover that begs to jump the queue. This is a frieze from the Sun Temple in Konark – where our tour guide shouted at us (just in terms of his volume, we figured he was unused to groups of only two!) I loved this dragonesque lion bullying the elephant. My trusty 6500 refused to work much of the time so all my cool photos of flaming Palash & simul, the baby goat I nearly ‘kid’napped, the baby elephant we played with at the Simplipal reserve, the Khairi river, sal leaf forests, the random-ass cups of *salted* tea I was continually served (grr) are all on the Samsung so cannot be posted here. We packed a lot into four days and I think I need a vacation from this vacation.
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