bangkok ~ thailand

this time was thailand not our final destination. we just enjoyed the chance to have some break on the looong flight to australia and spent 4 days in thailand. of course, we visited the king's palace in bangkok and this time we have had finally enough time to stay as long as we wanted to see enough from this imho nicest man made place on earth😍

the main entry into the king's palace (built 1782) ~ tosagirivan (green) and tosagirithorn (white)

our next stops (day trips) in thailand were:

• ayutthaya ~ the former capital of siam / thailand about 70 km to the north of bangkok
• patthaya   ~ the beach and sex tourism resort about 100 km southeast of bangkok

well, this time in bangkok we stayed in china town, so there was a lot to do / to see in the area where also locals live and spend their time. i liked china town much better than our big hotels area where almost only western tourists move around in the streets on evenings 😖

our nicest experience this time? well, while searching for the lumphini park, we asked two young people for the way and they joined us immediately and guided us via three different bus lines to the park. unfortunately, they didn't like an ice cream or a cold drink, so we only could say thank you and moved forward looking for komodo dragons 😵

enjoy few pictures ...

all in one collage

hotel china town

hotel rules: no durian :-)            china town by night

 

in one chinese temple

king's palace / grand palace 

apsarasi

Wat Phra Kaew temple is the home of the emerald buddha and a part of (king's) grand palace

fascinating wall painting stories / motives in king's palace ...

two of us, tired

best of all wiwes

King Rama IV

the chao phraya river is sooo dirty. shame on you, dear thailand, shame on you :-(

4 of us in lumphini park

komodo dragons in lumphini park

there are poor poeple out there, too

co-operation between gods + demons? yes, devas + asuras have had a common goal 😃 ... read more about the sage of churning of the milk ocean at wikipedia and read more about vishnu and hindu gods in my old india - rajasthan blog

 bangkok and singapore airport

more pictures here

our last visit to bangkok in 2012

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bhagavad gita ~ the ancient indian philosophy of life

well, it is already more than 1 year ago we have been to rajasthan (india).
in order to learn more about hinduism / india i followed the idea our travel guide suggested and i've read the 800+ pages of bhagavad gita. the book describes a dialog between god krishna and prince arjuna on the historic battlefield at kurukshetra. the chariot driver krishna (krshna) answers his friend arjuna 100 questions and doing so explains the philosophy of life. the bhagavad gita (often just gita or geeta) is a part of the ancient indian vedas (knowledge texts). btw, in slovak language means the word 'veda' science, so it has s.th. to do with wisdom in every case :-)

my dears, my edition of bhagavad gita was the worst book ever i read and finished. what does it mean? well, it was somehow special so i couldn't drop it into a corner, but many parts of it made me really aggressive. i do not think the ancient sanskrit original would have similar impact on me. why? what made me crazy were the commentaries in this edition which simply did not comment the verses but in a highly manipulative way told the reader what is right and what is wrong. there was no space for own interpretation and own thinking as the book was full of commandments, beliefs, duties, hierarchies, did not respect the women and much more of such issues. i especially did not like the 'always right' advice, if only we would serve krishna and chant all day his name, everything would be fine [unfortunately, i read the edition by 'hare krishna' editor sri srimad a. c. bhaktivedanta swami prabhupada ~ hare krishna, hare krishna, krishna krishna, hare hare. hare rama, hare rama, rama rama, hare hare.]
if possible, choose a different edition to read that interesting stuff by yourself, will you? :o) of course, there were also many interesting ideas/explanations/beliefs about the sense of life, what is after physical death, about the soul and it was nice explained why we should not eat animals ...

vishnu, brahma + lakshmi (krishna is the 6th incarnation of vishnu ~ find this (wikipedia) picture and read more about the main hindu gods in my rajasthan (india) blog post)

let repeat first, what hinduism is according the knowledge/impressions i've collected last year in northern india:

hinduism is the wisdom, way of life, teaching about the circle of life which consists of millions of lives... originally was hindu the (wrong) persian name for the north indian river of sindhu (indus) and hindus all people who lived behind the river sindhu .... the term hinduism was used by the english occupiers for the religion which was not islam, christianity, buddhism, sikhism, jainism, ...

hinduism teaches that the result of former actions is our today's life and the result of today's actions is our future. btw, our body is the result of the food we have had before as well. if only mcdonald's and monsanto knew :-) ... doing good brings good future (good karma), etc. the goal of hindus is to step out of the karma cycle and thus the join of the current individual soul with the (higher) global collective soul ...

more coming soon or never ;-)

chakka, i've got a hint to better explained bhagavad gita wisdom ==> please read what sadhguru has to say:
http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/yoga-meditation/history-of-yoga/sadhguru-on-bhagavad-gita-action-to-yoga/

if you don't know sadhguru at all, here are 2-3 short videos of his teaching:
#1 fear

#2 (miracle of life, breathing, sense of life is to live, try to stop breathing,  .. i hope i will find this short+funny wisdom, too)

#3 ten quotes

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