ISpyShanghai

People are funny about feet.

At the Emerald Buddha temple in Bangkok we had to make sure our feet were bare before we went in to see the main statue, but also that whilst we were there, our soles didn’t point towards the statue.

If they made up the deity, then they can make up what offends him I suppose, but it’s a little odd.

Emma likes to point out that you never see bare feet on an American sitcom. If Chandler from Friends gets out of bed in the middle of the night, he’ll always be wearing horrible thick white sports socks.

It’s a prudish thing that as a Brit I will never really understand; Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II regularly gives the Christmas speech whilst soaking her bunions in a bucket of hot water for all to see.

Slippers your Majesty?

With Bangkok snarled up in its infamous traffic, Emma and I took the river bus to one of Thailand’s top tourist spots: The Grand Palace.

Monks on the boat to the palace

 
The Palace was until pretty recently the official residence of the beloved King of Thailand (creepy photos of His Majesty are everywhere in Thailand, and if you say anything bad about him, they throw you in jail). 

Presumably due to the protests currently going on in Bangkok, royalist supporters hang out near the palace to tell people that the building is closed to foreigners until 3pm (last tickets for entrance are sold before 3pm).
The sneaky swines.

I was in a bit of a mood by the time we got into the palace; they have a strict dress code (no shorts, skirts above the knee, vest tops or Oxford bags). Emma wasn’t sure whether there’d be any place to change when we arrived so I had been walking around in the baking heat wearing brown woolen trousers.

When I arrived and saw how many people had been caught out wearing shorts and were now paying through the nose for horrible, horrible emergency clothes- I was glad she put her well-covered foot down. (Although apparently, this nipple-revealing highly-respectable see-through top was OK)

"What the hell is that guy wearing?"

The  eye-popping gaudiness of the Grand Palace is a wonder to behold- it’s a bit like an ancient stone temple that’s dressed up to go to a Mardi Gras parade hosted by Elton John.

Thais take their religion pretty seriously, every piece of land has a “Spirit house” on it (for some reason or other), and there are more temples than branches of KFC, but they don’t mind adding a bit of glitz and glamour to the proceedings. 

After all, what kind of divine being wouldn’t want their house covered in purple, green and gold shiny tiles?

The Grand Palace

Entrance Fee: 250Baht for foreigners / free for Thai nationals

These are great fun- 150 Baht (around 3 quid / 30 RMB) from a guy on the beach. The ring at the bottom is a little firelighter, a paper tube above that to catch the air, and away you go.

Also on youtube.

If you can’t see this video because your computer is backwards, then you probably aren’t going to enjoy the slideshows (one of Bangkok, one of Koh Samui) that I’ve got a team of farmers working on right now.

The beach at Mae Nam is pretty peaceful and the only person to come up and sell us something was the guy with these paper balloons. At the big resort of Cha Weng however, the whole sea front was packed with waves of hawkers.

Products for sale included:

• your photo with a Lizard
• A pearl / polysterene necklace 
• buckets of Thai Whiskey
• huge fireworks (they go great with the Whiskey)
• Your photo with a Monkey

Bangkok was full of crazy shoes. Shoes of every possible style and hue.

I’d show them all to you now, but then where would that leave me during the traditional Shoe drought of February 4th – March 12th?

Rumours that these are what Spongebob Squarepants wears for his ladyboy show are so far uncomfirmed.

It’s going to take me a while to organise photos of the excellent stuff I’ve seen both on Koh Samui, and in Bangkok- so I hope you’re not in a rush.

Why, only today I saw a trained monkey climb a tree and throw down coconuts to its cruel human captors (it was awesome).

Until I get back to base camp you’ll just have to imagine the many sights I have seen.

Oh OK then, you can have this one to tide you over.

Whew, online again here on Koh Samui. This is what the well-dressed foreigner is wearing in Bangkok markets these days:

Denim waistcoat, denim pedal pushers, and a pair of indoor 5-a-side football shoes.

Swish.

I’m writing from the lounge of Bangkok Airways- “Asia’s boutique airline” (there are little bags of free popcorn here and everything). On a few minutes I’m taking the short hop from Bangkok to Koh Samui where I’ll be taking a well-earned break from saving the world.

Bangkok was bonkers: today I told a Tuk-tuk to f*k off, and we avoided a clever scam by some kind of royalist protestors who tried to prevent us from going to The Grand Palace (they told us it was closed for foreigners until 3pm- it wasn’t, fellow farang beware).

Emma bought some shoes, lots of the female shop assistants have suspiciously big hands, and photos are coming soon.