There is a common style to many of the buildings throughout Thailand. The style of the wats (Buddhist temples) can only be described as gaudy. Everything that can be considered sacred or holy is gilded with gold. Lest you think that this is a criticism, it's not. I will never forget visiting the famous Emerald Buddha in Bangkok. Everything on the alter is covered with gold and the Buddha is sitting on a pyramid of statues that is at least 20 feet high. The whole bot (sanctuary) feels very holy and sacred. The outside of the temples is covered with intricate patterns of colored glass, stones, and tiles. A tremendous amount of planning and work went into the detailed patterns. Clearly the Thais are a very industrious people.
You see a very common and repetitive theme to the buildings throughout Thailand. The buildings that face the streets and thoroughfares are three or four stories high. The units on the first floor have a standard width and have rolling steel doors. Think of roughly ten standard home garages in the US with the rolling steel doors build next to each other. In each unit, is some sort of business. It could be a small grocery store, a restaurant, a music or video store, a drug store, or a small manufacturing plant. The floors are bare concrete. You would be tempted to park a couple of cars in them if it weren't for the curb and a couple of step you need to go up to enter the store. Some of the shops have glass fronts while the others are just open. When the shop opens, they just roll up the steel door and they roll the door down when the shop closes in the evening. Above the street level units, there are what appears to be apartments. Lucia tells me that these are really like a 4 story townhouse that is occupied by the owner of the first floor business. One floor is used for the kitchen and another floor has the bedrooms. Stairs connect the different floors in the unit. Frequently there are several of these buildings that make up a small complex. While some people might see this cookie cutter architecture as being kind of bland and boring, there is a vibrancy to it all. While this is not elegant, you have to admire it's utility and functionality to serve all kinds of businesses. People adapt their business to the architecture rather than the other way around in the US. They don't build grocery stores or restaurants in Thailand, they just set up shop in a standard space. The buildings did not exhibit any of the gaudiness or color seen in the wats.
Not too far from Lucia's mother's house there is a divided boulevard lined with street light standards topped with figures of open-billed storks. The metal storks are holding the street lights themselves. Since this section of the boulevard seems to run several miles, it is a impressive sight, especially at night. We saw something similar in downtown Bangkok. There, the standards are topped by what looks like a mythical winged creature that is holding the street lights. These have obviously been around for quiet some time. I suspect that these provided the idea for the more modern boulevard. The boulevard is somewhat unusual because it does not appear to lead to anything special but it is fun to drive on it no matter why they built it.