World Cruise: Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand (formerly, Siam)

We arrived in the port city of Laem Chabang, Thailand on Tuesday, March 25th (Monday, March 24th, Florida time). Laem Chabang is a huge industrial port servicing southeast Asia. There are several automobile assembly plants in the area so there are thousands of new cars and trucks in the surrounding parking lots ready for shipment to China, Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately, the port is over 2 hours away from Bangkok due to the heavy traffic and lack of public transportation in the area. Because of the distance, many of our fellow passengers elected to spend the night in Bangkok. We decided to do a long day tour (10 hours) into Bangkok and return to the ship for the night, then visit a beach town the next day.

On our tour of Bangkok, after a 2 hour drive into the City we first stopped at a tourist "must see" called The Grand Palace located in the Old Bangkok section of the City. It is a fabulous complex of royal, religious and government buildings huddled together inside an ornate wall in the center of the busy City. The buildings are a mix of Thai and Victorian architecture and were built by the King Rama V in 1867. We spent over an hour there walking through the complex with our tour guide. It was very hot and crowded and we were required to wear long pants and long sleeves, but the sites were stunning and worth enduring the hot conditions. The opulent palace complex contains the royal family residences as well as government buildings, temples and shrines made from colorful shiny ceramics and glittering gold.

Next, we drove through the heavy traffic to the beautiful Mandarin Oriental Hotel property on the Chao Phrayra River that runs through Bangkok and had a wonderful buffet lunch of Thai cuisine and Singha Beer in the hotel restaurant. After lunch we boarded a boat for a river cruise to enjoy the scenes of typical Thai life along the canals off the river. The boat trip offered a stark contrast to the opulence of The Grand Palace. The water villages along the canals were very rustic and much of the housing extremely rundown. Many of the houses looked like they were about to fall into the river. There was a terrible flood in the 2011 monsoon season and evidence of that devastating event is still around. Our last stop on the river tour was at the Temple of Dawn, another amazing ancient temple made of colorful ceramic. Visitors to the Temple can actually climb the steep stairs to the top. With the hot temperature and the crowds, we declined that opportunity electing to climb only to the first lower levels.

We returned to the ship exhausted around 7:30 p.m. after a long day of touring. Sadly, our time in Bangkok was short, but we had a very good tour guide and learned a lot about the area.

View of Bangkok from the river

Busy Bangkok Streets (population 12,000,000)

The Grand Palace:

Cruising the Chao Phraya River

Waterfront property on the canals

Temple of the Dawn on the river

Temple of the Dawn

Details of the ceramics used for the Temple

Temple goddess????

On our second day, we took a shuttle bus for a 40 minute drive into Pattaya, a beach town south of the port. Known as "Sin City", this area was made famous by the U.S. troops during the Vietnam War who took R&R there. We enjoyed exploring the shops in town. Brian got a 2 hour Thai massage and I got a much needed manicure/pedicure, all for less than $35.00. We walked on the beach, but found it much too crowded with chairs, umbrellas and vendors to enjoy any real beach time and the water looked a little too murky to swim. Instead, we had a late lunch of delicious Thai food and Thai beer at a beach hotel restaurant, then returned to the ship.