The Grand Palace

Trip Start Nov 08, 2006
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Trip End Ongoing


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Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The Grand Palace was just that. Ah, but which? Grand? A palace? I'll never say. I will say that it was shiny in all the right places. It actually hurt to look at it. And I don't mean hurt to look at like a Gaugin painting, I mean the sun reflecting off of every surface of every building was blinding. It was like this: you know those cool little reflectors that people use in 80s movies when they're tanning? It's like a 3-sided piece of foil that directs 3 different beams of light at their face to speed up the skin cancer acquisition process. Well, those things covered every square inch of outer wall, trim, and statue. And they all focused light from the blazing sun into a single beam directly into my retina. It was quite lovely and a sight I won't soon forget. It actually singed a portion of my brain, so I can't.

We walked around from building to building, taking photos, shielding our eyes, trying to find some patch of unoccupied shade 01 Entering the Palace
01 Entering the Palace
 . But it was like any other site populated with throngs of people - you get caught up in the waves of bodies flowing this way and that, pausing for photos, sweeping off again in another direction. But when we were able to escape the tide (Lindsey got caught in the undertow and I thought I might lose her, but some mouth to mouth saved her...I'm done with my water analogy). Anyway, when we were able to find some solitude, the grounds offered some very interesting sights. A wall perhaps 50 yards in length had paintings depicting scenes from the Ramayana (they called it the Ramakien or something, but I'm pretty sure it's the same thing). I read the Ramayana for a class and remembered a fair amount of it, so it was cool seeing the illustrations to refresh my memory. I also enjoyed sharing some relatively obscure knowledge with Lindsey (well, obscure for most Westerners, not for the billion plus Hindus and Buddhists). The class I read it for was pretty cool. It was a Literature course and we read the Ramayana, the Tao Te Ching, Gilgamesh, the first two books of the Bible, and portions of the Koran. It was liberating to be able to discuss the Bible as a piece of literature in context with all these other texts. A rabbi came in and lectured, as well as two Muslim women who came in and spoke to us about the Koran. But I digress. Back to the palace of shininess.

I was still shocked by how incredibly intense the light from the buildings was 02 Entering the Grand Palace
02 Entering the Grand Palace
 . It was insane. One portion was so bright it ceased to reflect color. It was just searing white. It looked like a giant Lite Brite with only the white pegs in and a thousand suns blazing behind it.

After an hour or two the heat became oppressive and my eyes could no longer focus. What I did notice is that while the buildings were glittery, I don't think they were as opulent as I had originally thought. They weren't painted in gold and studded with gems. It was more like they were sequined. So my feeling was that they were impressive and dazzling without mortgaging an empire or sacrificing incredible amounts of wealth that could be used for more practical purposes. But I don't know. Maybe it's a trillion dollar structure. That was just my impression.

After leaving the palace we had a very nice meal on the riverfront. Actually, the food was subpar, but the AC was turned down to 60 and my sweat froze into little crystals when we entered, so I would have eaten out of the trash if that's what it took to stay in there. I did have a blended watermelon drink that was incredible. I think they just removed all the watermelon seeds, placed it in the blender with a half a cube of ice, and pureed it. And I loved them for it. I had two.
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