Yesterday, we did the signature touristy stuff in Bangkok. We went to the two main temples: Wat Pho and Wat Phra Kaew. We saw a lot of magnificently tall buildings created in gold and sheltering beautiful Buddha statues--all product of thousands and thousands of hours of monk labor. Here are two such edifices:
Which of the two is more beautiful?
It so happens that only the first one is a real building--the second one is just a small fixture mounted on a hand rail.
These photographs were just part of an experiment to see how difficult it is to have an accurate sense of scale when there are no other known objects or people around. Inspired by a conversation with Phuong.
Anyway, we saw so many temples that I started getting alarming flashbacks of Portugal/Spain. More on that some other time. After we were templed out, we took a nine hour bus ride to Chiang Mai, which is where we are now.
One last word about Bangkok: if you ride taxis, ask the driver to use the meter before even getting in the car.
Today, we took a day tour for the following things:
- orchid garden
- white water rafting
(Photo to be scanned) - bamboo rafting
(Photo contains random people we don't know.) - elephant riding
- long neck village
In a nutshell, this village actually makes a lot of pretty sarongs to sell tourists. The tourists, however, actually blatantly come to see the female villagers wearing long coils around their necks.
None of us felt very comfortable with this. Personally, I felt guilty to watch villagers as if they were on display--somewhat analogous to people going to a carnival to watch a "freak show"--although I'd never consider these beautiful people freaks by any means!
Phuong made an interesting comment of how one young villager girl was wearing a ton of make-up possibly just to please tourists such as ourselves. That's depressing. I made one small weak mental argument to myself that long necks are signs of beauty in their culture, so these people may feel flattered to be seen by tourists. That argument does not go very far. I didn't have the heart to pull my camera out of my pocket.
Phuong was sad, but pointed out tourism may be helping the village's community, which agreed to these arrangements.
Katie was also sad because they seem to rely on commercial tourism (taking away from their original culture) to survive.
We all bought sarongs (I'll find someone to wear mine) at full price (200 baht, approximately US$7) to support their village. But I don't think any of us feels comfortable enough to go back.
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