Bangkok, revisited

Location: Bangkok, Thailand

On Tuesday, we headed out of Phuket early to catch our plane to Bangkok. We got into Bangkok at around 10:30 am, and had a flight out to Chiang Mai at 8:40 pm. Ben decided he wanted to just stick around the airport area for the layover. I however, did not have this choice, as I had lost my cell phone, and believed it to be in the hotel in Bangkok. So I headed to the hotel, and sure enough, I had left it under the bed. After convincing the hotel staff to let me search the room and recovering the phone, I decided to head out and explore some areas that we had missed earlier.

First, a word about Bangkok's transportation systems. Bangkok has two methods of mass transit: a subway system, and an above ground system similar to Chicago's L system. However, these two systems don't have stops in useful places (at least not for tourists) and there is no airport connection, for now. Add to this a ridiculously inefficient way of timing the traffic lights, and it makes for a terrible mess of traffic at all times during the day. I decided to take the above ground system for a few stops:

Upon entering the train, I noticed a sign above one of the seats for preferred seating:

I wonder if we should offer preferred seating for priests, rabbis and ministers on subway systems in the United States.

I ended up taking this train to the Victory Monument, constructed in 1941 to commemorate the Thai victory against the French in the French-Thai War. The whole area was a wide open roundabout:

After this, I walked over to the Chitralada Villa, which is the official residence of the royal family of Thailand. The palace is surrounded by a large fence and a moat, and I could only walk around the outside:

I then walked across the street to the Marble Temple, Wat Benchamabophit (quite a mouthful). This temple was made of Italian marble, and houses many images of Buddah, made of different materials. There is also a stream running through the grounds. The whole area was quite beautiful. I managed to get some pictures before my camera battery died:

After seeing this, I walked around for a long time looking for a place to eat, before giving up, buying some pineapple, and taking a cab back to the airport. I met up with Ben around 6:30 pm, and we headed for our flight to Chiang Mai...