Golden Mount; Thailand’s National Museum

I got a little watted out yesterday, so I branched out today, although Buddhism did still play a role. Truth be told, I tried to visit another wat (temple) this morning, but I was thwarted.

However, I did manage to take in two of my three intended sights this morning, the Golden Mount and Thailand’s National Museum.

But first, an MRT update.

MRT Update

Yesterday, I told you that despite reading that you can tap on/tap off the MRT metro system in Bangkok with a credit card, my card didn’t work. The fare gate told me “Invalid card.” To further recap, I went to the ticket window and the ticket seller didn’t speak much English, but another customer volunteered to translate. And, through him, I learned that the gates don’t take foreign cards.

I learned that, but I unlearned it today because it was wrong. I don’t know if the ticket seller was wrong or if the translator mistranslated, but it does accept at least some foreign credit cards.

There is a lot of very big “Visa” branded advertising by the fare gates in the MRT stations saying that you can use a Visa card to tap on and off the fare gates. I also spotted a small MasterCard logo, but I’m now thinking that the MasterCard logo might have referenced something else.

Yesterday, I tried using MasterCard via Apple Pay. That’s what I used in Singapore on their MRT and it worked there. The two MRT systems are not related in any way whatsoever. So I shouldn’t have relied on my Singapore experience.

I have a Visa card as well as a MasterCard, but I set a MasterCard card as the default on Apple Pay, so I decided to try using the raw Visa card today rather than using it through Apple Pay. You have to tap on and tap off the MRT. I worried that if I tried my Visa card through Apple Pay on the way in and it worked I’d forget to switch from my default to my Visa card when I tried to exit. I didn’t know what the system would do if I tapped off with a different card than the one I tapped in on, but probably not good things. I know; I know. It’s hard to believe that I, of all people, would worry about that sort of thing, but I do.

The upshot is that my Visa card worked. I don’t have to go through the bother of buying a token for each ride on the MRT. It’s much more convenient.

So, now you know. You can use a physical Visa card on the Bangkok MRT. I don’t know if the problem yesterday was that I was using MasterCard or that I was using Apple Pay. So a physical MasterCard might work. And using Visa through Apple Pay might work. I’m not going to bother experimenting to find out.

Then again, transit systems update their payment systems from time to time, so if you come to Bangkok, things might be different then and you would have wasted your time reading the tedious past several paragraphs. That’s time you’ll never get back. Sorry.

Golden Mount

The Golden Mount sits atop an artificial hill.

That is to say, the hill is real. I’m not saying it’s virtual reality or a universal figment of everyone’s imagination. But it wasn’t created by natural geological forces. People put it there.

What’s up with that? Bangkok is a very flat city. But they thought, heck, flat cities don’t challenge old geezers much. Let’s fix that! So they built an artificial hill. They probably wouldn’t admit to that. But I’m pretty sure that’s what it was.

True, you don’t have to climb Golden Mount to get anywhere but the top of Golden Mount, but, still, it’s there.

There are 344 steps to the top of Golden Mount. I know this because at its base there’s a big sign that says “864 Steps.” No. Of course not. There is a sign, but it says “344 Steps.” What the heck did you think it would say when I told you there are 344 steps? I’m amazed and disappointed at how poorly you people follow along.

On the way up Golden Mount, there was a small artificial waterfall and some statues, including a “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil monkey sculpture.

Near, but not quite at the highest you can go on Golden Mount, there’s a small building. Inside there are a few Buddha figures and an area where people can pray in front of them. There’s also a counter and a vending machine selling water and other soft drinks. Well, the counter doesn’t sell the drinks. A person at the counter does. But that’s probably obvious. Never mind.

At the entrance to the building, an announcement plays through a speaker. It says, in English, “Do not take off your shoes. Do not take off your shoes. Do not take off your shoes. … Do not take off your shoes.” After that repetition, there were a few words in what I assume was Thai. It was short enough that it might have said the Thai equivalent of “Do not take off your shoes,” but only one time. The English repetition then began again.

Do they think anglophones are slow learners? Come to think about it, as I alluded to in one of my Singapore posts, Americans elected Donald Trump as their president, not once, but twice. So maybe some anglophones are slow learners. Never mind.

The “do not take off your shoes,” was not an inane non sequitor. In all temples here in Bangkok (and almost all of the ones I visited in Singapore), you have to take off your shoes to enter. I guess this building at the Golden Mount is not considered to be a temple because, unless I misunderstood the annoying announcement, not only do you not have to take off your shoes, but you’re not supposed to.

The stairs to the top of the Golden Mount, i.e., the roof of the building, are inside the building. Up top, there are spectacular 360-degree panoramas of Bangkok, although it was a bit hazy when I was up there. Now that I mention it, I’m often a bit hazy, but that’s something completely different.

There’s also a golden dome at the top of the Golden Mount and bells to chime.

Bells to chime. Thanks for reminding me. There are also a few series of bells, with clangers, to chime beside the steps on the way up. I respectfully chimed several of them. I read somewhere that Buddhism believes this brings good luck. I’m not Buddhist, but, who knows? I’m an old man in his declining years. I’m not going to pass up a possible opportunity for good luck.

On the way down Mount Golden, I passed the Vultures of Sraket Temple. It’s a sculpture with some vultures, some people standing or squatting, and one dead guy lying down with some of his belly eaten.

According to the English half of the accompanying sign, “In 1820, during the reign of King Rama Il (1809-1824), cholera disease spread from Penang lan island in today’s Northern Malaysia) to Bangkok leading to more than 30,000 deaths in the capital. At the time, the practice was not to cremate the dead bodies inside the old city. The bodies were transported through the only city gate that was allowed for this purpose. This gate happened to be the closest to Sraket Temple (known in Thai as Wat Sraket). As a result, the temple became the main receiving ground for the many dead bodies which came in every day. However, the temple was unable to cope with the large number of dead, some bodies had to be left out in the open area of the monastery as they could not be cremated or buried in time.

“Vultures began coming to the temple to devour the dead bodies.”

Lovely.

According to my guidebook and walking tour app, there’s also a temple immediately beside Golden Mount, Wat Saket. According to my guidebook (Lonely Planet), it’s supposed to contain, “murals that are both the most beautiful and goriest in the country”—depictions of Buddhist hell.

I found a few buildings at the base of Mount Golden that had Buddha and other Buddhist figures and praying areas and where I had to take off my shoes to enter, but nothing that fit the description of Wat Saket. Maybe I just misinterpreted the description, but it wasn’t where Google Maps said Wat Saket should be.

There was a building exactly where both Google Maps and the mapping function of my walking tour app said Wat Saket should be, it was inside the Golden Mount compound, but it didn’t look like the picture my walking tour app provided (although I might have been viewing the building from the wrong side) and it was closed.

Giving up on Wat Saket, I left the Golden Mount area and headed to my only other destination this morning, Thailand’s National Museum.

By the way, when I got back to my hotel later today, I did a web search for “Golden Mount Bangkok” and found a website for it. It’s entirely in Thai, but I used the translate function of my browser. In its body copy, the page talks about Wat Saket. Maybe I saw it. Maybe I didn’t. I don’t know.

Thailand’s National Museum

Thailand’s National Museum is in a collection of old buildings that, according to my guidebook, were mostly built in 1782 as the palace of Rama I’s viceroy. Geez. Viceroy’s get palaces? How can I get that gig? Then again, it’s now a museum. No good thing lasts forever, I guess.

The permanent collection is quite eclectic. There are old thrones, weapons, statues, household items, artistic artifacts, musical instruments, puppets, and much more such as a royal cradle stand and a statue of Emperor Napolean Bonapart. The latter was made in the 19th century and was in the collection of King Pinlao.

There was also a temporary exhibit called Gaia that’s small and even more eclectic.

The museum has a couple of buildings that require the removal of shoes. One is a temple. The other is a tasteful, building that looks like a small home with highly polished wood floors. That home is where the royal cradle stand was.

Because the museum is in a few buildings, and because I was more than a little peckish, I probably missed one or two of the buildings. I was distracted by a sign pointing to a small, hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the museum compound serving Thai food. I had Pad Thai and then had to move on because I prebooked an activity for the afternoon and I needed to leave to catch that.

I’ll post another entry on my afternoon activities soonish. If you read this at least a few hours after I wrote it then it’s probably already here. Go look for it. If you can’t find it you probably didn’t wait long enough. Patience is a virtue, they say. They say a lot of things.