Exploring Philippines' Neighbors - Pattaya Day 7

 This day was planned for a one day tour in Pattaya.  We hired a cab that could take us around the places we want to go in Pattaya. Our friend planned out our itinerary actually as he has been to Pattaya before.

Pattaya is a city in Thailand, located on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, about 165 km southeast of Bangkok located within but not part of Amphoe Bang Lamung (Banglamung) in the province of Chonburi.

The place is famous to tourists as there are nice beaches around but we didn't go to any of it. If you also want to move away from the traffic and pollution in Bangkok, Pattaya is truly a good option.  Although it has also been known that prostitution abounds, we didn't find the place to be loaded with prostitutes. (probably in other parts, or during nighttime...)

The places on our list for that day were: Sanctuary of Truth, Nongnoch Garden and the Buddha Mountain.

We spent more time in Nongnoch Garden and there we rode the elephant. =)

The Sanctuary of Truth is a temple made 100 percent wood.  And because it is made of wood, the construction is ongoing. It first begun in 1981 by Mr. Lek Wiriyaphan, the founder of the Ancient City in Samut Prakan Province. With exquisite an unique architectural features, the building was conceived out of the vision that human civilisation has been achieved and nurtured by religious and philosophical truth. It is an unfinished project, but worth a visit even now.  You pay 500 baht for the entrance.

Sanctuary of Truth

Buddha mountain displays a laser-carved and gold-plated monumental Buddha image. About 130 metres tall and up to 70 metres wide, it is rated as one of the biggest Buddha images in the world. An outstanding landmark in Pattaya's countryside, it is visible over a long distance.

Buddha Mountain

After visiting these two places, we were starving.  We saw an eatery on the way to Nongnoch Garden, and so we stopped by.  As this was not a classy restaurant, the servers/owners didn't know how to speak English. Menu was in Thai! The only English word the waitress knew was chicken and that's what we ordered. Truly challenging, eh. Actually if you are just not choosy, you can go cheap on food.

We were now excited to go to Nongnoch Garden.  Apparently this garden started off as a traditional fruit plantation in 1954 and was designed on 1,500 rai/600 acres of land. However, inspired by the beauty of world-renowned gardens abroad, it was redesigned as a tropical garden of ornamental flowers and plants, initially meant for botanical observation. In 1980, the garden was opened to the public and soon turned into one of Pattaya's most popular tourist attractions.

Nongnoch Garden

Apart from the biggest botanical garden in Southeast Asia, Nong Nooch features a variety of attractions like elephant riding (surcharge 400 Baht/person), an exotic zoo, animal shows, and a fascinating Thai cultural show with dance performances and Muay Thai demonstrations.

elephant ride @ Nongnoch Garden

The highlight of every visit, however, is probably the truly amazing elephant show that is great fun for spectators and performers alike, it seems. You can watch the jumbos play a game of football, basketball, bowling and darts. Some elephants turn out to be real hobby artists and paint images with their trunks, while others have specialized in a special kind of foot massage. Most amazing, however, is that this entertaining show doesn't only provide great fun for the audience, but that the impressively skilled and specially-trained elephants seem to enjoy the show performance and the various challenges themselves just as much as the visitors, and display a great sense of humour and ambition!  Entrance fee is 400 Baht for foreigners.

And of course like any Filipino, we took a lot of pictures here. Talk about portraits and pictorials!

We went home around 4pm.  The way back took around 2 hrs or more I think becuase of the traffic on the way back. We met our friend at the Paradise Park Mall where we had a sumptous Thai dinner.  Afterwhich, we had ice cream in Swensen's. Swensen's was not yet available in the Philippines at that time but it was set to open a branch in Mall of Asia. Swensen's is an American ice cream shop and it offers a variety of flavors and combis. I ordered for a rum-something ice cream + some other toppings... Yummy!!! And the good thing about all this good  meals is that our friend paid for them! =)

Went home tired and a bit drunk of that rum ice cream! hehehe...

Tomorrow we are leaving...sniff***

Exploring Philippines' Neighbors - Bangkok Day 6

Day 6 (Sept 28, 2011) is exploring Bangkok. Actually, Bangkok cannot be fully explored in just one day. It's so huge!

First stop was Khaosan Road. This is one of Bangkok’s most famous streets. It is mainly a hangout for hippies and budget travellers. And there are also a number of money changers, tour agencies, street vendors, budget shops.

Our main goal in Khaosan Road was to look for a day tour to Pattaya that included the Nongnoch Garden. This was our friend's suggestion. Unfortunately no one offered a Pattaya tour that included Nongnoch. So around 12noon after having lunch at a local Thai resto, we headed off to the Grand Palace.

According to Wikipedia, The Grand Palace (Thai: พระบรมมหาราชวัง, RTGS: Phra Borom Maha Ratcha Wang is a complex of buildings at the heart of Bangkok, Thailand. The palace has been the official residence of the Kings of Siam (and later Thailand) since 1782. The king, his court and his royal government were based on the grounds of the palace until 1925. The present monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), currently resides at Chitralada Palace, but the Grand Palace is still used for official events. Several royal ceremonies and state functions are held within the walls of the palace every year.

The palace complex is such a wide complex that you can practically exhaust your whole day at the place but since we had limited time, we had to hurry up and not stay too long at the place. Since within the complex lies a lot of temples, one has to wear proper attire that is long skirts and shirts/blouses with sleeves. If you are not wearing that, you can rent out a sarong and/or blouse or shirt with sleeves.

Inside the walls of the complex is the famous Temple of the Emerald Buddha or Wat Phra Kaew. Built in 1783, the temple was constructed in accordance with ancient tradition dating back to Wat Mahathat, a royal chapel within the grounds of the royal palace at Sukhothai, and Wat Phra Sri Sanpetch at Ayutthaya. The famed Emerald Buddha is kept within the grounds of the temple.


The temple is surrounded on four sides by a series of walled cloisters, with seven different gates. Like those ancient royal temples of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya, the Wat Phra Kaew complex is separated from the living quarters of the kings. Within these walls are buildings and structures for diverse purposes and of differing styles, reflecting the changing architecture during the various reigns of the kings. Despite this, most of the buildings within adhere strictly to classical Thai architecture. The establishment of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha dates to the very founding of the Grand Palace and Bangkok itself. (source : Wikipedia)

I am so amazed at this place. I love the glittering gold, colors and so grand structures inside the palace. Thailand has truly preserved its culture. Kudos to the Thai people!

After exploring the palace, we were now off to temple that housed the reclining Buddha, Wat Pho. According to our research, this is just adjacent to the Grand Palace. So we just walked our way there.

Wat Pho is one of the largest and oldest wats in Bangkok (with an area of 50 rai, 80,000 square metres),and is home to more than one thousand Buddha images, as well as one of the largest single Buddha images of 160 ft length: the Reclining Buddha. Again this is another amazing feature in Bangkok.

The image of reclining Buddha is 15 m high and 43 m long with his right arm supporting the head with tight curls on two box-pillows of blue, richly encrusted with glass mosaics. The 3 m high and 4.5 m long foot of Buddha displays are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They are divided into 108 arranged panels, displaying the auspicious symbols by which Buddha can be identified like flowers, dancers, white elephants, tigers and altar accessories. Over the statue is a seven tiered umbrella representing the authority of Thailand. There are 108 bronze bowls in the corridor indicating the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha. People drop coins in these bowls as it is believed to bring good fortune, and to help the monks maintain the wat.

This reclining Budha statue is the biggest in the world, followed by reclining Buddha in Penang, Malaysia, Nepal and Mojokerto, Indonesia. (source: Wikipedia)

It was around 4pm already when we finished touring the Wat Pho complex. And our next stop was supposed to be Wat Arun but it was already closing time for the temple so we just decided to forego that one.

Outside the Wat Pho were a number of tuktuk drivers offering to show us around Bangkok. A guy offered to take us to one temple, and then some jewelry shops, with the last stop at a shopping center.

So we decided to take that as our feet were tired already and we wanted to roam around Bangkok as much as we can. We were off to that temple which I couldn't remember the name. Then he brought us to two jewelry shops. We later on learned that these drivers get gasoline vouchers from these shops if they are able to bring tourists and even bigger amount of vouchers if the tourists buy something. Unfortunately for him we are on a budget and buying jewelry was never on our to-do list. We did buy 2 items but these were really cheap ones. The driver suggested to take us to another shop but we didn't want any more of that so we asked him to bring us to the shopping center. He dropped us off at some shopping center. Again I forgot the name! I think we paid him some 40/50 THB.

My friend and I just roamed around the shopping center. We bought some nice sandals cheaply priced. Upstairs we decided to go and there we discovered Tesco Lotus. I know Tesco as a grocery store in UK. But I didn't expect there is Tesco in Asia.

Tesco Lotus according to Wiki is a hypermarket chain in Thailand, Cambodia and China. Established in 1998, Tesco Lotus was a joint venture of the Charoen Pokphand Group and Tesco, the British giant supermarket chain. However, facing criticism over the growth of hypermarkets in Thailand, the CP Group sold its shares in Tesco Lotus in 2003.

The much interesting part of discovering Tesco Lotus was the wide array of clothing they offer. And because this is a hypermarket, the clothes were inexpensive! We spent so much time in here! I bought my pasalubong for my family here. I probably spent some 2K PHP and I got a lot! I thank that tuktuk driver for dropping us in that shopping center. Of course I cannot buy so much stuff because we didn't have check-in luggage on our flight back to Saigon.

After our shopping spree, it was now time to get back to our friend's place.

Time to rest and get ready for our Pattaya day tour the next day. Actually our friend was able to get a taxi driver who will take us around Pattaya for 1k THB each. Not too bad. =)