Saturday, January 15, 2011

The world's largest teak mansion

Yes it's true, Bangkok has the world's largest Teak Mansion. Now I know what you're thinking. #1 "What the hell is Teak?" #2 "Ok, and....?". Here are my answers to you, which I learned while at the Teak Mansion. Teak was a very valuable type of wood for the Thai people, and rich people would build their whole houses with it, now it is illegal to cut down trees in Thailand, so occassionaly wealthy will import Teak to build there house with it. In days of old people in Thailand would build traditional houses using teak and without the assistance of any nail or bolt. So with that background info here are my recommendations for this site:#1 - Go into this knowing that it's really not terribly interesting unless you love antiques (which decorate the house) or teak. If you are a teak fanatic I may wonder about how this came about, but antiques I can understand, and the house is full of them#2 - Photography is not allowed. You must lock all you possessions in a locker prior to entering and may not wear shoes.#3 - You are supposed to go with a guide. Which means you have to learn about every room and chair and candlestick in the place, which can take an hour and prove to be infinately boring. Sometimes you have to wait for 20-30 minutes for a guide who speaks your langauge, forcing you to wait outside in the sun, when all you want to do is move on to another attraction in Bangkok. #4 - If you are clever enough you can sneak into the house and go on your own. This makes the house exciting because not only are you in the biggest Teak mansion in the world, you have to duck away from guards and security and so forth. In actuality, sneaking off on your own may be your only thrill provided by the mansion! You may get an additional kick out of catching up to a group from Japan or Thailand and be the only 6 foot tall plus white guys in the group. Just act like you belong and hang out and see the looks on their faces. Good times#5 - In reality, Teak Mansion, for me, did not exactly put the air in my sail. I could have gone without it and instead have seen a different sight. However maybe I will be able to use the "Oh yeah well I've been to the worlds biggest Teakwood Mansion" one day as bragging rights

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