July 18—Thailand’s National Museum Tour, Wat Pho Massages, and the Dread of Food Poisoning

Dear Family and Friends,

Wednesday, July 18, up and out by 8:15 AM for a big day of exploring. We wanted to catch the 9:30 AM guided-tour in English at the Bangkok National Museum of Thailand, just across from Sanam Luang (an open field between the National Museum and Grand Palace used for public events, including recent protests against the former prime minister of Thailand). Martha and Dani arrived uptown by taxi (100 baht) by 9 AM for the 9:30 AM guided tour.

Our guide, Denise, is an expat from England, who has been living in SE Asia (Nepal, Laos, and Thailand) with her husband over the course of the last 25 years. Currently, she works with a series of volunteers who offer these free guided tours of the National Museum and who are actively working to improve the status of the buildings, the climate around the pieces of artwork, and the general upkeep and standards of the entire facility. She expressed how slow the process has been (what with most moneys for historical preservation in Bangkok going routinely towards keeping up the Grand Palace) but a worthy cause and one that we hope they are very successful in accomplishing. The statues and historical masterpieces housed throughout the complex are well worth the effort for their historical value to future generations, and for people like us who are interested in the history and context of this country.

The tour began in the temple of the "Palace to the Front" (the palace for the successor to the king, located in front of the Grand Palace so it would fall first in an attack). The temple's Buddhaisawan Chapel houses the ‘second most important’ and revered Buddha in Thailand (after the Emerald Buddha), called the Buddhasihing. Denise sat down on the floor with us to teach us some of the basic principles of Buddhism and some of the story of Buddha, which she continued as we walked along the walls of the chapel. She explained the scenes depicted in the artwork, which is all anonymously painted to gain Buddist merit, visualizing the stories of Siddhartha. For example, we heard about his queen-mother’s dream about the white elephant who circled three times and then entered the right side of her stomach (the Buddha was supposedly born from the same spot); the translation of this prophecy that the queen’s son would grow to be either a universal monarch (as Siddhartha's father, the king, hoped) or a religious visionary; Buddha’s growing up years in seclusion surrounded only by the young and beautiful (he escaped on his beautiful horse Kanthaka with the help of his servant Chandaka only to encounter for the first time suffering in old age and illness, which changed his life); his leaving his wife and young son to seek Truth; his devoted meditation under the Bodi Tree; the rivers rising as he meditated, and the king of the naga (Anaga with seven serpent heads) from the underworld coming to lift him up and give him a cover and protection from the swirling waters and blistering heat; and his defining moment of Nirvana, or enlightenment.

The story as we were told goes like this: when Mara and his armies of demons from the underworld rose up and questioned how Buddha could dare to believe he was worthy to be enlightened, who would stand up and be witness to Siddhartha’s good deeds? Buddha responded that he had done many good things in his lifetimes, and placed his hand into the earth. He called upon Bumi, goddess of the earth, to be his witness. Bumi stated that each drop of water in her hair was reflective of one of the Buddha’s good deeds, wringed the water from her hair, and thus caused a tsunami of floodwater that destroyed Mara’s army, clearing the path to Siddhartha's moment of divine understanding.

Deeper inside the museum area, we learned that people traveled across the lands a lot sooner than one might anticipate. For example, Alexander the Great’s army reached the edge of India before his men said that they had had enough of the incessant wandering and warring. Many did not even return to the Hellenistic regions of their birth, instead settling in the distant region of Asia. Their presence had great influence on the artwork of Thailand and India, bringing the idea and forms of sculpture to the population. Many Greco-Roman sculptures were inspirational to how one might create images of the Buddha. Some Buddha sculptures even have flowing, Greco-Romanesque robes.

Through the ages, peoples from India, the Hmongs, the Khmer Empire, and eventually the Thai villagers of Southern China, occupied these lands, and the faces of each are reflected in the different styles of Buddha displayed in the National Museum. Some have more square faces (the Khmers); others have more pointed noses and finer features (when Indians were more prevalent); and others were adorned as God Kings in the times when kings needed to be powerful, revered, and held up on pedestals. And each stance or presentation of the Buddha shows more than the facial features considered beautiful from the people and times; each shares one of the stories of the Buddha’s life. Each encourages greater understanding of his quest to help people seek better, more mindful selves through experience, responsibility, and introspection. Many of the artists represented in the National Museum really excelled in presenting the introspective, calm, 'blissed-out' (as Denise put it) state of the Buddha in meditation or after enlightenment.

Our final stop was in the huge room where the royal chariots are kept for use when a monarch or someone in the royal family passes away. Amazingly tall, these chariots are made up of sparkly, towering, ornate levels with naga and hands-in-prayer-pose devotees of Buddha carrying the royal family member to the afterlife to await rebirth. These hefty chariots used to be carried by 72 men, but now the teak and gold structures are pushed along on wheels; it is still a great honor to push the wheeled chariot. As the body arrives on the grounds of Sanam Luang, it is carried from the chariot to the center of a grand wooden pillar, where the body is cremated and the pillar falls to the ground. The most recent member of the royal family to pass, the king’s mother, requested that the entire pillar not be burned to the ground this time, since it had taken months of ornate woodwork at the art institute to create the amazing structure. Part of the structure is now displayed in the room of chariots along with a photo of the Queen Mother, smiling at passers-by.

We were very thankful to have met Denise and to have shared her knowledge today. It will change how we see so much on this trip; what a grand and continuously-giving gift! THANK YOU, Denise!!

By the time the tour ended, it was after noon. We needed to change over some money from Traveler’s Checks, and that has to be done by 1 PM as we understand it, so Dani asked a passing security guard where we might find a bank. He said it was a three minute walk in the opposite direction from where we were headed, and we easily found the Siam Bank in just about that amount of time. The lady behind the counter was lovely, getting the money changed over for us and pleasantly asking us about our trip. In the meantime, we watched people pile into the doorway outside of the bank in attempt to escape the monsoon downpour that had started since we’d entered the building.

It was tough to leave the bank’s air conditioning and enter the stream of rain once again, but we were hungry, and managed to get past the collection of people blocking our path. Around the corner, we found lunch at a place close to where we had dined with Sheila during our Saturday at the Grand Palace. Dani had ‘drunk noodles’ with chicken while Martha put some chili powder on her soy-sauce stir-fry, also with chicken. Both of us had a refreshing Thai tea to wash it down!

Today, we were both dressed appropriately for the conservative needs of the temple-dwellers, and we headed to Wat Pho. Wat Pho is among the most famous of temples in Bangkok, and is a must-see when it comes to Buddha imagery. It houses the Reclining Buddha, which is one BIG reclining Buddha. Seriously. It’s big, and reclines in the pose associated with the final moments of the Buddha, when he died of food poisoning (an unfortunate theme to our day, as you will read …). You see, monks must eat everything that they are given by villagers, and the Buddha knew that one of the dishes had tainted meat, so he made them feed the entire dish to him. As Buddha lay dying, his followers wanted to hurt the man who created the food (who did not know it was bad), but Buddha told them that this was only the catalyst to his demise, and not something that could have been prevented or that carried blame. And so he passed from this earth and now sits in the Heavens waiting to choose his new parents and be reborn.

The feet of the Reclining Buddha are particularly spectacular: large, with prints on the toes, and, on the center-bottom of each foot, a circle representing the center of the universe. And surrounding the circles are beautiful animals, deities, ocean, trees, and land scenes representing all life around the center of the universe to cover the rest of the bottom of his feet. All of the adornment on his tremendous feet is made of Mother of Pearl.

From the room with the Reclining Buddha, we walked the grounds of Wat Pho until we came upon the wonders of the massage school that is taught within these wat walls. We wanted to get our first massage in Thailand form the massage school so that we knew the 'proper way' a Thai massage should be done for the next time. For an expensive 360 baht each (about 12 USD), Dani and Martha enjoyed an entire hour receiving Thai massage. We had to put on little shorts for the process, lay down on a bed in a room full of people on bed beside bed; so there were two other people in the beds next to Martha and two people next to Dani in another row across the open passageway to the beds. Thai massage was more like acupressure than what one might call 'the rub down' of an oil massage. A lot of twisting and pushing the muscles away from the bones is involved, and it’s not always completely pleasant. The style of the massage is pretty routine, so we both experienced similar massages, including a deep-muscle approach to the back of the thigh where the women hook one foot underneath a knee and rub and push the other foot up and down the inner and back thigh to really get in there where the muscles are deep under the skin (and flubber). Although some of the process is routine, the method is really a pastiche, as each therapist added their own flair and depth to creating their client’s perfect Thai massage.

After the massage (that's Martha's post-massage look to the right above), they let you change and give you a little tea to sip. Martha and Dani went from there to explore the rest of the temple grounds: statues of the man who taught many people this style of massage, children playing soccer and basketball, and tourists lounging about outside of the home of the Reclining Buddha. Also, note the adornment on the chedi behind Martha and in the photo below, right, which are covered with pieces of porcelain tile delivered from China as ballast on the boats that were returning to Thailand from China. The boats would arrive to China with heavy products such as rice and return with porcelain, which is much lighter to ship; to compensate for the weight difference, the Chinese would send back loads of porcelain tile or the Chinese-style dogs, lions or soldiers that are now scattered around Thailand and appear in many of our photos!

Back at the Tha Tien dock, we hopped on the Chao Praya Express South to the Central station at Sathorn, where we walked home to complete a total of close to eight miles for the hot, long day. Back at home, Dani cooked the remainder of the fish balls and veggies. We were about to finish dinner when we had a visit from neighbors Chris, Ty, and Sara while they waited for Chom to return from the gym with the apartment keys. In the meantime, Sheila had gone out on her own adventure, leaving us a note that she was taking Bus 77 uptown to look for the market where Indian wares might be sold. Along the way, she made friends with a French wanderer and the two found the market just as it was closing down. At one point, the Frenchman pointed to a stingray-type–fish hanging in one of the stands and said, “Disgusting, no?”

Sheila replied with: “Well, I understand that in your country, you eat snails.” Touche, Sheila! Good show!!

The duo chose the wrong place to eat for the night, though, as Sheila returned to us on the verge of being physically ill. She soon was vomiting, and Dani turned on the Mother Mode. The food poisoning was uncomfortable for our roommate, and we felt badly for her, caring for her in our own, unique ways. Dani placed ice on her neck, got her water, and put a trash can by the bed. Martha tried to make her laugh with bad jokes and to comfort her with the medical knowledge about food poisoning that she found online, saying, “Well, it should last only 24 to 72 hours, and if you develop a fever or these other symptoms, we need to take you to the hospital” just as Dani was saying, “I’m sure this will not last long!” Martha was asked to leave the room. Sheila took a cool bath and was soon asleep, with Dani staying up late sitting in the living room, just in case she was needed. BE FINE, SHEILA!!! PLEASE!!

Much love and food safety,

Martha and Dani