Golden Palace - Bangkok

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1st December 2020

Bangkok

Today I set my alarm as I was being whisked away to Bangkok for a tour of the Golden Palace.

We first visited to Bangkok and this amazing place over 25years ago, we returned in 2013 as a last stop off of a cruise before flying home, unfortunately at that time I wasn’t feeling 100% so I thought walking around the Palace at midday with temperatures in the 30’s wasn’t a good idea and I didn’t take the tour so this morning I have taken a virtual tour with Kay the local guide. How strange not to see hoards of tourists but that meant we could get up close and admire all the intricate decorations of the buildings whether they were stained glass, ceramic or gold mosaics.

The Golden Palace of Bangkok was home of the Thai King and the Royal court for over 150 years. Our guide referred to the various Kings as King 1, King 2 King 3 etc up to the current King 10. He called them by number as the names of the Kings were so long for us to remember.

As we wandered we could hear chanting bells in the background.

We were unable to go inside to see the famous Emerald Buddhas but I do remember it well from our visit all those years ago.

The robes on the Buddha are changed with the seasons by HM The King of Thailand – an important ritual in the Buddhist calendar

An interesting mural all hand painted depicted the story of Ramayana a continuous narrative all explained in detail by our guide Kay.

When I’m on holiday I am always busy snapping away with my camera, this morning it was busy snappy screenshots !!

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