Erawan Museum!

The day after going to The Grand Palace, we headed off to do some other sights around Bangkok before heading back on the long journey to Surat Thani.  Our first stop was at the Erawan Museum.  I have no idea how to describe this museum, other than saying its pretty magnificent.  The building has multiple floors, the bottom floor being a grand collection of different pottery pieces and other things like that from all of the different times.  I didn't really understand what was the guide was saying when she was explaining everything because it was in Thai.  You had to pay a lot extra if you wanted it in English, and I figured that it wasn't worth it, and I'd pick up a book explaining the place on the way out. 

This is the outside of the museum, and as you can probably tell from the picture, it has a giant elephant chilling on top of it.  The elephant actually has three heads, but I couldn't get a decent picture of all three of them due to the backlighting.  But for Grandma-this is the three headed elephant I told you about, and I am honestly not going crazy.  You have to option of going "up" the elephant, through one of the legs, and you can look out the belly of the elephant.  I did this, and when climbing the stairs, you really don't get to see how high you've gotten, until you look out a window, and see the ground, really really far below you. 

At just about every place I have travelled to, their is a prayer area, where you pray to the Buddha.  It was the same for the Erawan Museum, and this is just a picture of my host mom and I praying...Well she was praying and I was kind of sitting there reflecting on things.  I wasn't totally sure what I was supposed to do, so I decided that reflecting on everything that I have learned was a good thing to do. 

Something different that we did here was putting lillies into the water for good luck.  I thought it was quite amusing because the watery area that we put the lillies in (depicted in this picture) went around the museum, and ended on the other side.  There was a slight current so the lilly would go around the museum and then a worker would collect it on the other side, and resell it later.  I guess its recycling, but I still found that to be quite amusing. 

In this picture, we are putting a piece of gold foil onto an elephant for some reason.  I think it was for good luck, or good health, something that is beneficial to you.  Most people put it up high, but I couldn't really reach, so I think I put my piece of gold foil on the foot of the elephant.  Elephants are very special here, and they represent the fact that Thailand has never been colonized.  There is a much larger story to go with that fact, but I do not know it, so I can't tell it to you.  Maybe a bit later in life I can tell you the story, but not right now. 

Okay so enough with the probably boring information.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in the bottom half of the museum (the part with all of the artifacts) so there are no pictures to show you.  All I can really say is that it was pretty cool, and there was a lot of ceramic vases, plates, and various dishes that were all very pretty to look at.  There was writing in English describing all of the different things, so I was able to understand just about everything that was in there, just not the person talking. 

The second floor.  So this is a statue at the bottom of the stair case in the second floor.  (The main floor, just above the artifact part.)  Not much to say about the picture, it's pretty much me and a statue, but I liked how it was so intricate.  Everything here was intricate, and breathtaking.  The staircase, which you can't really see is done as a dragon, and in other pictures you can see the scales, and the colors.  It was pretty cool to see.  I was a little nervous about climbing the staircase because it was freestanding, but I did it because I didn't really want to stand there looking like an idiot, and I figured that thousands of people have done it before me, so I should be safe. 

 The skylight.  This is the skylight located directly under the elephant.  It is a map of the world, and I just thought it was pretty cool.  I found where Canada was, so I have a picture of that as well.  It was brightly colored, but you can't really tell that from the picture. 

  Inside the belly of the elephant, or this might be the head, I'm not totally sure, was a temple.  There is a statue of Buddha at the very top, and then other Buddhist images/monks placed around it.  The roof is painted with a lot of constellations, and it was pretty impressive.  There was someone doing a film (camera crew and everything) on this place, and I'm in a bit of the video :) I will probably never see the video, but I thought it was cool that someone out there will see me chilling in the elephant. 

Okay, this is me at the bottom of the staircase, the very bottom.  The first picture is like the second floor of the main building, I'm not sure how to explain it.  This is another statue that is used as a decal for the end of the railing of the staircase.  I liked it because it was an elephant, and it was very nicely done.  The ears are lined with ceramic spoons, to give it that shape.  They used some of the most interesting things to decorate it-lots of spoons, but also glass tiles and beads. 

 This is sort of a side look at the inside of the building.  The staircase is the pinkish scaley thing you can see in the top right hand corner, and the middle left is another section of the staircase.  The big temple type thing in the middle is called a Sa-lat, and its where a statue of a Buddha sits, and you can pray to it.  The big gray slab of rock that is on the left hand side of the picture is a column made out of one piece of stone (not sure what type) and there is some sort of a history depicted on it.  I haven't read the book describing what everything is yet, so I can't really explain everything properly.  Sorry about that. 

 Just another view of the inside of the museum, where you can see the staircases, and some of the intricate designs that are in this place.  Thats the top of the sa-lat, and an upper portion of the colomn that was in the previous picture. 

 The main entrance way.  This is the main door that you use to enter the building.  I thought I'd post a picture of it because it was really pretty and cool to look at.  Its big as you can probably tell, and thats all I really have to say about this picture. 

Ahh this is a picture of the staircase.  In the middle slightly to the right you can see the head of the dragon.  Sorry its backlit, but it was sunny and hard to get a picture.  You can see the scales of the dragon, and a bit more of the column. 

So this was my time at the Erawan Museum.  It was really cool, and I enjoyed it throughly.  I think that I am going back their in December with the other Rotary Students, so I will take lots more photos. 

The next stop on our Bangkok Trip was to a zoo, with an crocodile show.  I didn't take any pictures of the zoo because it was quite sad.  The animals weren't well taken care of, and seeing them made me sad.  We had lunch there, and I was offered crocodile, but I politely declined because I didn't really want to eat a crocodile.  One of the highlights of the zoo was the crocodile show.  There were two guys who did a few tricks with a crocodile to get some money.  My host dad was like a kid in a candy shop watching the show, and I'm pretty sure that if his wife didn't stop him, he would have thrown all of his money at the people doing the show.  It was quite amusing. 

 The three guys ending the show with their crocodile buddies.  It was a pretty entertaining show, with all the people freaking out at the different points in time.  My host mom looked like she was going to cry at one point, but she never did.  And luckily there were no accidents that would be life altering.  Haha.

 They would totally relax the crocodiles jaw muscles, so that they would be unable to shut their mouth, even if they wanted to, so the guys were pretty safe.  It was still quite amusing to see everyone gasp and whisper after the man took his head out of the crocodiles mouth, and the crocodiles jaw would slam shut. 

 Just another picture of the guys head in the crocodiles mouth. 

Believe it or not, there is a wad of cash in the little boys mouth, and he is going to deposit it in the crocodiles mouth.  He took a running start and is sliding into the crocodile, so that he can do the "drop".  It was quite funny to see because the first time, he missed the crocodiles mouth, and he didn't slide far enough the second time.  But, lucky number three, and he got it in where he was supposed to. 

There is another part of my day, but I think I will put it in another post because this one is getting pretty long. 

So my next post will be about our time in Ancient Siam.