This morning, we checked out of one of the world’s finest hotels (if I and numerous rankings are any judge): The Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok. Aside from seeing glimpses of my mom’s former life and showing my dad around, the highlight of our time in Bangkok has to be staying at the Oriental. Before we picked my parents up from the airport several days ago, Joylani and I swung by the prestigious hotel to drop our bags and check-in if possible. We walked up the manicured driveway with our backpacks (still with the reddish tinge they acquired in dusty Ban Lung), past the security booth and past the valets. Just before we made it through the doors, which were being manned by costumed men, a man in a suit with a phone cord coming out of his ear, asked us if he could help us. We said we were here to check in. He asked if we had a reservation. When we replied in the affirmative, bell boys quickly appeared and took our packs. Besides trying to convince the gentleman that we would be guests at their fine establishment, it was awkward giving up our bags. I mean for nearly the past 8 months, we’ve rarely taken our eyes of our bags, much less voluntarily given them to someone. We were in a state of shock for the first few minutes after we arrived: bell boys to carry our stuff, fresh flowers and juice upon check-in. Once in our room on the 15^th floor, I flung open the curtains and we both laughed in disbelief at the unbelievable view. The call button for the butler (next to the bed) and plate of fruit were nice add-ons to a stellar room, with an amazing bed and bathroom. Life was different.

Besides enjoy the hotel, we spent most of our time in Bangkok sightseeing. Jetlagged, my parents slept most of their first evening in Bangkok. Day two was spent sightseeing with one of my mom’s old friends. Day Three was a marathon day, which included plenty of transport in my mom’s beloved river taxis and my dad’s first ride in a tuk-tuk. Yesterday, was a relaxing day spent at the hotel. Although we just stayed at the hotel yesterday, I think everyone’s had a good time here in Bangkok. For Joylani and I, it was awesome to see my parents and relaxing to stay at such a nice place. My mom has been pretty jubilant since they arrived and its interesting to hear all her stories and comments on the Bangkok of today and yesteryear. I think my dad is having a good time too- he gets to be a follower on a vacation for once, instead of the planner and director. Smoking his cigars and enjoying my mom’s excitement, while seeing a new place seem okay to him. Its been an awesome few days here and I’m looking forward to the rest of our time with my parents, but its almost sad that a third of the trip is over.

my mom visiting her old haunts

my dad enjoying new Thai experiences, like tuk-tuks

Joylani enjoying the luxuries of The Oriental

and I’m up top enjoying some mangoes and sticky rice

I must say, not that I ever thought otherwise, but staying in a “real” hotel is quite lovely.  I’m glad they let us in the other day without a hassle, Matt mentioned our dusty backpacks, but we also were lugging a black garbage bag stuffed with trekking gear.  Everything here is gorgeous, the room is absolutely amazing, there’s a floor butler, fresh fruit and orchid in our room, and an amazing breakfast buffet.  The bed is soft and fluffy and covered with pillows. 

On top of all the perks, in the morning we have a wonderful maid who does up our room.  We return in the afternoon to find all our little junks (pens, accessories, clothes) that had earlier been strewn around the room and on the desk top are now positioned in pleasing arrangements.  It’s like having Dwight Shrute for a maid. 

We finally visited the Grand Palace compound today.  I didn’t think it would be that much different form the other ones we’ve seen so far, maybe bigger.  So I was happily suprised by its practically immaculate state.  Things seemed to be restored and well taken care of.  One of the most impressive sights inside the compound was this mural that ran along one of the wall of an inner courtyard.

(this pic courtesy of Rob Shibata)
I think some restoration work had just been completed and the gold highlights on the mural were great.

Mostly we just walked around and gaped at the usual glitz and glimmer of tiles and mosaics with some other fun components thrown in.  Even though some of it borders on gaudy, overall the look is still tasteful.  It was just cool to see whole huge structures decked out in tiles and shiny things.

Jolly stone guards guarded entrances

And delicately patterned tiles adorned the walls.

We met my parents Suvarnabhumi Airport, in Bangkok, today. After the Valentines Day rush (my Dad is in the flower business), my parents hopped on a redeye to Bangkok. Besides coming to visit us, they’re celebrating an early thirtieth wedding anniversary (real one is in June) and its my mom’s long awaited return to Bangkok and Thailand, where she taught English for two years, thirty years ago. For Joylani and I, it’ll be awesome to see and spend time with them. Additionally, it’ll be a bit of a break from the backpacker life for us, since they’re treating us to a couple weeks of travel. Needless to say, their standards are bit higher than ours, so we’ll be rolling in style for the next couple of weeks. Although they are some of the last people we saw (July, in Paris), it’s been nearly seven months since we’ve seen them. It was great to see them today, although they were both understandably tired. We had a nice lunch and then my Dad crashed for the night. We walked around with my Mom a bit before taking the SkyTrain over to Siam Square. It was interesting to hear her perspective on the city, which so far is: most of the city looks much the same, but there weren’t skyscrapers everywhere and its way more commercialized now. After our little excursion, we headed back to the hotel, where my Mom stayed for the rest of the night. With my parents catching up on jet lag, Joylani and I enjoyed our unbelievable hotel room at the Oriental, which may warrant its own post at some point. Like nearly every night for the past seven months, we went out for dinner and I followed Joylani around a market for a while, while she looked at clothes (Joylani asks that I clarify the “every night” refers to going out to eat, not following her around shopping . Now back at the hotel, we’ll enjoy the night and look forward to hanging out with my rested parents tomorrow.

postnote: as the photo of the day can attest, the view from our current room is substantially better than its been in awhile…

Grrrrr.

I’ve discovered the joys of chicken sticks, sticky rice, and baby tigers. We came to Kanchanaburi for a few days before heading back to Bangkok to meet Matt’s parents. While the WWII museums have been interesting, my highlight was playing with baby tigers. I opted to not take pictures with the big ones because they wouldn’t let Matt and I go in together, was hot from standing in line, and frustrated from a few things, one of whom was a fat and hairy tourist who refused to be a civilized person and wait in line. (It wasn’t like India where the way is do what you can to get served because there is no line. There was obviously a line.) After Matt was done with the big cats, we decided to walk around the compound instead of waiting in the parking lot for our truck to leave. This was a great decision. We saw a couple staff helping visitors hold baby tigers. We walked up, just to watch, but then got offered a cub.

It filled my arms; being a tiger, the size of the cub was more like a puppy than a cat. It was so much fun to look into their sweet little faces, more curious than ferocious. After taking turns holding the cubs, we were ushered to an enclosed area since the big tigers were being brought up the hill to their normal cages. This meant we had 20 wonderful minutes to play with the cubs. There were only about 15 other visitors in their with us. We sat in a circle on the ground and let the tigers walk around. One climbed into my lap, followed by his brother.

(it’s a little blurry because it was dusk and we couldn’t use the flash and they kept moving)

Luckily for me, they seemed to like it there and stayed for a while. One took a liking, er licking, to Matt’s knee. A lady commented on how he must be an animal lover, “They [the animals] can just sense these things.” For those of you who know Matt, you know what an animal lover he is…

The cub finds Matt’s knee…

mmm…salty!

After the big tigers were back in their cages, it was feeding time for the other animals. Bunches of bananas and veggies were strewn about the path, and heard of boars, buffalos, and other funny creatures came stampeding from around the compound to get a bite to eat.

It was a little tricky walking back out to the parking lot, but luckily we made it ok. I don’t really know how ethical/realistic the whole place is, particularly with the tigers. I mean, with so much human contact since birth, I don’t see how any of the tigers could be released back into the wild. There is no “back,” they were raised in captivity and allowed to play with tourists for goodness sakes. The admission fees are supposedly going to fund building of better tiger facilities though, so we’ll see what happens in the future. Any animal activists out there have any thoughts on this?

And no one says anything about the boars. What about releasing them back to the wild? (The story on the boars is that the monks cared for an injured boar, and after it was released it returned a few days later…with its whole family! They must like getting all those bananas. It’s got to be hard for a boar to get bananas in the wild.) I mean, when I get food I like, its hard for me to go back to the wild too…I mean back on the road. You see, the other wonderful thing we’ve been enjoying for the last few days are these flavorful bbq chicken sticks from a stall the rolls up right outside our soi in front of 7-11. I’ve seen similar stalls in Bangkok and all, but I never really thought they looked too appetizing before. Until I got a whiff of un-polluted bbq aroma. We bought a bag our first day here, and each day after (except for one day when she ran out before we got there…)

Feasting on our favorites: bbq chicken, sticky rice, beer, REALLY yummy crunchy wafer cookies, and deliciously juicy oranges. I think I had a coke too. Thank goodness for 7-11 and street food.