Grand Palace Bangkok
The Grand Palace is Bangkok ‘s foremost attraction. It is a compound of buildings and statues, including the Emerald Buddha, of staggering beauty and colour. It attracts 10,000 visitors a day but numbers have swelled as the Old King who passed away in October was very popular and genuinely the father of the nation has his cremated ashes here so thousands attend to pay their last respects. The remorse and respect seems genuine but it must also be said that Thailand has the most severe lese majeste laws; one person received a 20 year sentence for a joke Facebook posting about the royal dog . We were informed in advance that security was tight and strict dress code of no shorts nor for ladies bare armed attire was required. Sadly we were not advised of the crush of people with together with a searing heat made the whole experience extremely unpleasant.
Matters came to a head when outside the crematorium where the King’s ashes are housed, there was an enormous queue so our passage to a gateway to reach the middle area was totally blocked. Tempers fray easily in such situations with the most unlikely of people. I found myself being shoved by a Tibetan monk and I responded:
“Come and have a go, Dalai Lama, if you think you’re hard!“
He came at me in a conventional martial arts pose (some of these fellow are less beatific monks, more thugeee and wannabe Bruce Lee). I had in my own way served in India under the hero of Goose Green and I was ready.
I went low, I went hard, I went for broke, catching him fully “in the twin temples of Krishna”. I flipped him round and gave him good and proper one up the Vishnu where Shiva don’t shine.
Here is one monk who will be in meditating in his Holy Shrine prostrate.
I was exposed on my southern flank but a burly Scot, whose wife was first disappearing into the crematorium with the flow of inconsolable Thai mourners, felled with one hay-maker three grinning Japs with selfies, a New Zealand back packer and a born-again Christian from Des Moines, Idaho. My brother in arms secured the bridgehead and we advanced as an irresistible fighting force through the gateway.
Our guide called Lucky and referring to herself by the third person (“Lucky see you at the corner, Lucky will always be here”) was most concerned that she might lose someone in this maelstrom.
There is a Swedish woman in the group, who reminds me of that old bird that shoved the man down the cellar steps in the Carlsberg advert, whom I heard moaning to the concierge about everything and anything when I had an Internet problem. I put her down as a she-who-must-be-avoided. Sure enough when we were missing one it was she who went to the ladies never to return. If I was John Pargiter I would give you odds it would be her. Incidentally his spread market on how long it takes a passenger to speak of his/her bereavement has narrowed to 3-6 minutes.
Bangkok is modern city of skyscrapers. One of the Kings liked Paris and designed its central thoroughfare along the lines of the Champs Elysees. The yellows are all for the centralisation of Bangkok but the Reds represent more the aggrieved and poor farm worker. It is difficult to estimate the population properly as so many are unregistered slum dwellers but it’s around 14 million. The next biggest city Chang Mai is only 200,000.
It had been a long and tiring morning so after my lunch and nap I decided a quiet evening in the cabin was required. I had mislaid my daily activity sheet among the plethora of paperwork. Eventually I located it and found out hat I had missed on a drink for solo travelers. Our social organiser Robert Ho, an academic who attends cruises because of his proficiency as a ballroom dancer, called to say he had booked The Grill. This serves food on an iron hot plate which is apparently well worth experiencing. Sitting on a open deck on a balmy night when everyone is freezing back home and enjoying huge tiger prawns and filet mignon cooked to perfection on the griddle was indeed worthwhile.
Later the gas fitter from Bergamo and his troupe of singers sang various numbers.
Dancing is a crucial at, and popular element of, cruising though not one in which I will participate.
Many years ago,when I had the nickname Snake Hips, I was invited to dance before the Shah of Persia but portliness and surgery have constrained my trips to the dance floor.
Robert glided around the dance floor with a similarly accomplished and sinuous partner who I was astonished to see was the lively but elderly American widow with whom I had lunched the previous day.
With one thing and another it had been a full day as I omitted to mention I had to broach my complaints with the Serbian guest relations manager from whom I relied a sympathetic hearing. My beefs stem from the fact that it is all too regimented and concierge service should do what it says and supposed to do, namely facilitate the wishes of the client. In the morning they refused to make a dinner reservation as you have to do this only through the all-powerful Maitre D Sergio with whom I have already clashed. It has taken me a few days to understand what cruising is about but last night under the stars I fully understood and experienced its attraction.
