If you haven’t heard the news yet, The World Race is currently in Bangkok, Thailand!
I thought pictures would really let you know how things are going with me and tell of some of our adventures…like getting lost in a city of 10 million! yes, million.
A skyscape view of the city with the Thai flag o’course. Yes, it’s even bigger than it looks.
WELCOME! Sawatdee! (which means hello in Thai…and is also the name of my favorite Minneapolis Thai restaurant!) And yes, the pad thai is just as extrodinary here as it is there!
One of the many, many pictures of the King and Queen around the city. Everyone here really honors the Royal Family and we found out that Monday’s are ‘wear yellow’ day b/c the king likes yellow. weird. I thought it was some new Asian fashion that I was missing out on.
Another great city shot that I love. The monk, the flags, the city…this really is a cool place.
On most all public transportation there are these signs and when we were on a crowded boat we got booted out of our spots so that the monks could have the elbow room they needed. Apparently monks can not touch a women or even take an object from a female’s hand or they will have to go through an extensive multi-day cleansing process. intense. I know.
These are the very monks that got our standing space. We did not touch them, though I really just wanted to brush shoulders for the fun of it. :0
This is the monk’s quarters at a temple we visited. I guess we weren’t supposed to be there because we quickly got ushered out after I snapped a quick shot! We honestly didn’t know! We can’t read the signs! Yes, the stupid tourist card really comes into play here quite a bit.
We visited many temples here in Bangkok on our Race day. I don’t even know how many there are in the city but there are TONS!
This statue at one of the temples we visited almost made me pee my pants! I love that face!!
Praying to the buddhas. It was really something to watch as people offered incense, lit candles and bowed down before these golden images. Please pray for these precious people!
Some of the story telling art on the walls of one of the temples. You could have had a whole years worth of Thai history just by studying those walls I’m sure. Really spectacular art–I absolutely love this aspect of Asian history. Tell the stories through pictures not words…maybe we should have had picture books in History class…yeah…
The Recling Buddha. One of the biggest and most famous buddhas around. He just looked shiny to me.
These are bowls along the wall that people place money in to ‘earn merit’ for themselves. Thai Buddhists believe that they can earn themselves good kharma by buying it or ‘earning merit’ at the temples. It’s a pretty eery sound of clinking heard throughout the temple as you walk through. Very interesting.
While walking through one of the temples we were bombarded with a group of Thai students who wanted to do interviews with English speaking foreigners (farangs in Thai). They recorded our interviews, got pictures taken and answered questions like what our favorite food and sports are. Lots of laughs…we Americans are a riot!
Aum was our amazing tour guide for our day out in the city and will be with us during our ministry for the month here in Bangkok. She is amazing!! She lead us around all day, made sure we were all accounted for, told us where to go, and explained culture to us. She had no idea that our little troup would unknowingly get separated in a fated tuk tuk ride.
Shawna, Jen, and I hopped into a tuk tuk after Aum explained where we were all headed and off we went! We cruised through the city traffic and laughed and chatted the whole way there…until…we were dropped off and our group was no where in sight. dun dun dun. Lost in Bangkok.
So we waited for a bit, walked down one of the streets, tryed asking people where in heck we were in relation to anything familar to us and laughed…a lot. This was not a high stress situation where I’m sure it would have been seven months ago. All we heard from the locals was, “5 Baht, 5 Baht, 5 Baht!” …meaning that we could each travel in another tuk tuk for 5 Baht a piece for the rest of the afternoon. Pretty good deal (less than 2 cents…seriously.) so off we went in search of our lost group.
We soon realized we were not going to find the others and so instead checked out a few more temples and shops before trying to find our way home. It was pretty cool because we went to a bunch of places that weren’t on our agenda for the day…like this guy…Standing Buddha. neato.
This was our driver for the day. He’d drop us off and then wait for us to get back from whatever we were doing and then take us around again. I was shocked at this whole thing…2 cents!! He was a fun guy and really almost killed us a bunch of times…but it was really fun.
He dropped us off at the canals…since we thought we had to get on a boat again of some sort and so we hopped on here…headed in the right direction–praise the Lord! Locals take these things more than tourists so it was a little shady…but uber fun. You gotta love doing the stuff no one else does!
After the boat it was on to the Sky Train and then to the Bus Stop where we met this little guy. We stopped to sit with him for a bit but he didn’t seem to care much, he was mainly just very despondant. The sad thing here is that most of the people on the street are owned by the mafia, so this little kid was probably working for someone, or forced to work for someone. He’d sit up every once in a while and put the money from the cup in a little satchel he had…money he’ll probably not see again. Please pray for the people of Thailand that are caught in endless cycles of poverty and prostitution.
Home sweet home. We made it back to our home at the YWAM base after our day of fun adventures, getting lost, and figuring out how to traverse the city! We win!
Even Ronald McDonald does the ‘wai’, the Thai handshake-like greeting. 🙂
Thailand is an amazing place! I think I’m really going to enjoy our ministry here for the month with a place called The Well that works with girls in the sex trade industry. Please pray for them, for us and for our safety, and for our ministry here! More to come on that when we get started!
