The main reason to go to Wat Pho in Bangkok is to see the giant reclining Buddha inside the temple.
Another is to visit the Wat Pho massage school.
And a third is to eat at a restaurant across the street.
Wat Pho attracts so many tourists that you feel pressured to walk quickly around the golden Buddha in order to make room for others. No place to sit and contemplate, and no time for that.
With Thai companions, I escaped the crowd into a more peaceful area, the monks' quarters, where we sought out an altar dedicated to Pha Thammaracha-Nutwat.
This monk came to Los Angeles in 1973 and served as head monk of Wat Thai in North Hollywood from 1979 to 2002. At the same time, he taught at Wat Pho, where he passed away in 2002.
With me was Pramorte (Pat) Tila, who was on the original board of directors of Wat Thai and was involved in building the temple.
Pat Tila lives in Thailand now. His son, Jet, was active in Hollywood's Thai Town and the L.A. restaurant and cooking school scene until he moved to Las Vegas to become executive chef of Wazuzu in the Wynn Encore.
But I couldn't leave the wat without visiting the massage school, where students are trained in classical Thai massage, and customers serve as guinea pigs.
The massages are communal. Modesty isn't an issue. You remain fully clothed. However, the guy next to me took his shirt off, which was not a pretty sight.
In years past, I came and went to the school like a regular, walking through the quiet grounds with nobody around. It was enchanting, like spending a moment in "The King and I." Now, the school is full of tourists.
The price for a massage has more than doubled since those days. But at less than $12 for an hour, it's still a bargain. The rate for Thais is less than half what foreigners pay.
Leaving the wat, we crossed the street to the Coconut Palm Restaurant, which is frequented by locals and students from a nearby commercial college. Tourists must find it too, because the long menu is in English and Thai.
Thais are picky about what they eat, and my friends critiqued every dish. I listened when Jet praised the mee grob. An expert at cooking almost anything, he has long been my personal guide to Thai food.
This mee grob was spicy and sweet, properly crisp and not sticky. And it was natural in color rather than tinted with catsup or chili sauce to make it look more appetizing. The garnishes included cross sections of pickled garlic heads, scallion tops and dried shrimp.
Jet also liked the filling for khanom beaung, a Vientamese style crisp pancake folded over sweetened pickled radish, pork, dried shrimp, peanuts and bean sprouts.
Pat Tila said that fried fish cakes (tod mun pla) were too loose and not sufficiently chewy. This doesn't mean that they didn't taste good.
Our driver, Sert, wanted to have rad na, because the Coconut Palm makes his favorite version of this rice nooodle dish. Pat spoke up that the sauce needed more nam pla (fish sauce). This would have made it saltier.
We also ate very spicy pork larb, prawn salad with lemongrass and roasted chile paste and fried rice with shrimp paste, which was sweet, spicy--and shrimpy. The bill for six dishes and drinks was around $15.
I would have gone back another day, but Bangkok's notorious traffic has to be factored into any plans. And I was staying in a part of town so unreachable at peak hours that one night a taxi driver simply refused to go there.
Coconut Palm Restaurant, 394/3-5 Maharaj Road. Pranakorn, Bangkok 10200, Thailand. (Tel) 0-2622-2246.
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