Sidestory: The Thailand Temple Trip ~ Initial Exploration

 9-Oct-2026

After 13 hours of sleep, I finally feel rested enough to explore my surroundings a little. Let's start with a tour of the place. It's a small one-room apartment with a bath and shower, much like the one that I stayed at in Davao (see Book V ~ Chapter 9 ~ Davao Downtime), but much more modern. I can stay here for two weeks, no problem! It's even got a laptop-friendly workspace.

The only kinda icky thing is the bathroom, which is Brazilian-style. Meaning you don't flush the toilet paper, but throw it into the garbage bin next to the toilet. I'm glad I only have to put up with that for two weeks. Also, the toilet paper here is smaller. It's like the whole roll has been scaled down to 80%.

Also, it has a "drying balcony" that is sealed both from the inside and outside, and yet has its own draft to dry clothes. That's actually pretty neat. I can dry my clothes there without risking them getting wet in any surprising rainfalls, but they also don't dampen up the room with their moisture. Did I mention this place is modern? I mean it!

Oh, and nothing to make you feel welcome like droves of warning signs. At least I can take note of these and them put them away in a cupboard.

One thing that's not so nice is that the door has a gap beneath and around it, which means you can hear everything that happens in the hallway. Also, I can hear the neighbor's TV just fine even over my own music playing. At least last nice was nice and quiet, or maybe I was just that wasted after the flight.

And here's the view from my window at daytime.

Anyway, out we go! And it's already in the elevator that I have my first new experience: A wall panel that plays commercials with sounds as soon as someone enters the elevator! Pretty sure this was already there yesterday, but I wasn't up for much noticing yesterday.

Also there's this sign saying you shouldn't enter the elevator while wet. Read that one as you like.

And now for a puzzle: How do you exit the building? Here's what you have to work with:

Solution: You have to "not touch" the unfriendly red button that says "No Touch EXIT", and then push the right door (not the one to the left that's closer to the button). The button has a proximity sensor, so you only need to get close to it with your hand. From then, you have a few seconds to figure out the correct door and open it.

Anyway, out I go, and here's the route I follow today, going counter-clockwise. 

First, I head past the Bangkok Plaza, and quickly find out that the roads here are not very walkable.

Crossing one of the many channels criss-crossing the city.

Oh, and hey look! It's something like a sidewalk!

Before long, I reach a mega-freaking HUGE two-level road that terminates my progress quite aggressively. Crossing this one is out of the question, and there's no crosswalk anywhere in sight.

I actually go the other way for some distance there, hoping to find a crosswalk. but all I find is a red elephant shrine. If my guess is correct and this is a Hindu shrine, then this is Ganesha, the elephant-god of intellect, wisdom, arts and sciences. I can relate to that.

Anyway, with no other options (and no, turning back is not an option), I walk by the road with reasonable care. Most of the time there's enough space by the road. That is, if no one is parking on them.

There's several more shrines along the way too. I may not like the walkability of this area, but I do like all the shrines.

At several points, I have to make my way through slums. And even there I find something that may or may not be a shrine.

Getting across the channels is the one tricky thing. Fortunately, I find this bridge which at some point was clearly intended for pedestrians, but then the people who built this road apparently said "Eh, screw it? Who's gonna walk here anyways?"

Also, there's a dead kitten on this bridge. Poor thing.

The other side of the bridge looks like that. And there's some street dogs living here, just chilling in the shade of the road above (and thank Dragon for that shade! Did I mention it's hot and humid here?).

Also, here's a traffic light again! And it even has a neat countdown!

From here on out, the area gets progressively more walkable. Also, there's more shrines.

Walkable comes with a * here, because, well, the area still feels kinda crappy. At one point I even pass through slums with rows of caged animals. Maybe that's a low-budget pet store? I didn't take any pictures because I wasn't comfortable, and wanted to get out of that area as fast as possible.

Also, there's this trilingual poster, which is more suggestive in Japanese. The Japanese text on it reads "Nude Massage, Pretty Woman Masseuse".

Anyway, I've now made my way back to "civilization", arriving at the Bravo mall.

Of course there's also a Ganesha shrine here.

On the inside, that mall looks... kinda unfinished.

But despite large parts of it being empty, and barely any people inside it does have several open stores, as well as an indoor skate park.

There's also a Food Street. Let me quickly make a Thai language check to see if I can order something here.

[One failed Thai language check later]

Okay, so I have chosen to eat lunch at this place called the Living Room, which offers several famous Thai street foods in a language that I can comprehend, along with... DRAGON DAMN IT! NOT AGAIN!!!

Okay, that's fine, I don't have to order any of that German stuff. So in the end, I get a really tasty portion of Pad Krapow. The drink is nothing exotic today though. Just a can of Schweppes.

Also, they have this nice little poster near where I sit, advertising love, honesty, benevolence, kindness, and all sorts of other positive values.

Moving on, I find one more shrine at one of the entrances of the mall.

And right across from there, there's the main event of today's stray: The Wat Uthai Taram (วัดอุทัยธาราม).

Walking through the temple grounds makes me feel calm and at peace for the first time since I've arrived in Thailand. It's really beautiful here. But I think the true treasure of this place it that it's an island of serenity in them middle of a busy city.

 

Moving on from there, I cross the railroad tracks via a very provisional crossing, and then the big road beyond on a more professional crossing that lets me avoid the crazy Thai traffic altogether. Just look at those motorcyclists!

Along that road, I run into a whole sequence of shrines.

I also run into another small mall, which along several food places also has a new brand of Konbini, as well as what I can only describe as a crowded dealer's den with merchants peddling their wares on tables side by side (sorry for not taking a picture of that, too anxious).

Right next to that is the second temple for today: Wat Mai Chong Lom (วัดใหม่ช่องลม). This one is not as big as Wat Uthai Taram, but still nice.

One feature that these temples have in common is that unlike the generic donation boxes that I'm used to from Japanese Shrines and Temples, these one have very dedicated donation boxes. In Wat Uthai Taram I put my donation in the bin labelled "Education", and here I put it in the bin for what I think was the general maintenance of the temple, if my Google Translate app is to be trusted. I'm glad I installed the Thai language pack in advance.

Moving on, I walk past what is either a rooftop temple, or a really fancy penthouse.

And now for something completely unexpected:

Now it's back to the other side of the railroad. Oh, hey, look! Looks like that line is in service after all!

As is this shrine that I come across shortly there after. This is the fist time I've actually seen someone pray at a shrine here.

I also come across this funny shop. Now I know where I can go for Lolz.

But this one tops out today's stray, because the one thing I haven't found yet was a proper supermarket. And I've been to two malls!

Finding everything I need in there only requires me to use Google Translate to communicate with the employees, who do not speak English. And then I'm on my way back to the Airbnb. This time, there's a nice sidewalk which I just have to follow and... DAMN!!!

Right, so I'm taking an adventurous walk along the roadside again. Thankfully, this road is not so busy. Also, after a while I run into more shrines that take me further into the back roads. Don't worry though, since two of these shrines are directly next to a police station.

 

And then, I'm back on my home turf again, with the Lloyd beckoning in the distance. I can't wait to get back into my blissfully air conditioned room again.

But before that, I want to check out that one path nearby that I had my eyes on. Turns out that this is a shortcut to the Tops that should come in handy, now that I know how to reach it from the other side too. Based on the little tiger figurine next to it, I'm dubbing this the Path of the Tiger. And the infrastructure is only a little bit dilapidated.

Anyway, back in the Lloyd, I have to wait long enough for the lift to take notice that it should not be used in the Evant of Fire. Conveniently, there's a switch just above that for turning off the fire. Great design!

And then I'm back in my room for some relaxation (and blogging) before heading out again for dinner.

My prime learnings from this stray:

• The walkability of the surrounding area is clearly limited, so I'll probably have to get used to the local taxi system for getting around
• Which is fine, because every hour walking in this heat feels like two hours, so extended walks are probably not gonna happen here
• There's many shrines around, and the temples are nice too
• Supermarket located, and shortcut secured! 

Oh yeah, and here comes the rain wave! Hope this lets up by evening so I can go out and get some dinner. I'm very glad that I didn't get caught in that.

Aaand, then things happen. A friend of Chella's contacts me, and I decide to give her another chance. I am lonely here after all, and I figure since I came all this way, we might at least give this a try. The only thing is, she's currently in Ban Bueng (อำเภอบ้านบึง), which is roughly 90km south-east of Bangkok. So, she packs her things, gets into a Bolt (the local equivalent of Über) and a few hours later (traffic in the Bangkok area is just that bad), we're sitting together in an Indian/Lebanese restaurant in the Bangkok Plaza, sharing a Lebanese grill platter and some Naan.

Oh, and sorry, I completely forgot to take a picture of the food. Nothing left now but empty platters and scraps now.

So, where do things go from here? Well, let's just say that my Thailand Trip now is back on track again, Chella shares the apartment with me, and we'll see where it goes from here.

I'm still not sure about how I feel about her, but now we have a little over a week together to figure things out. So let's see how this develops.

What will tomorrow bring? I'm not sure. But I'll sure to write about it here once the day is over. So until then, stay tuned, and be of great cheer. =^,^=