Bangkok - Grand Palace, Giant Budda and a bus trip to Ko Tao

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Got up early today and got properly dressed (long sleves, trousers and shoes) for a visit to the Grand Palace.

Left the guest house at 9ish and jumped on a Tuk Tuk to the Palace. At 9:30 the place was already busy with hords of japanese tourists and the temperature was increasing quickley.

Got in fine and walked around the splended palace grounds taking oodles of photos. The gold statuets and Stupa were mighty impressive and ina completely different league to the palaces in Cambodia and Laos. Even the wall paints and glass mosieques were splendid and superior to anything else witnessed on the trip so far.

After wondering around the grounds I joined the queue and entered Wat Phra Kaew which was nice apart from the outside which was covered in scaffolding. Unfortunatly in here again I was prohibited in taking any photos.

Later I left and wondered across the street to Wat Pho. Again the entire site (temples, stupas) were covered in scafolding but I was here mainly to see the impressive reclining budda. The impressive 45metres long, 15metres high, gold plated reclining budda. Quite a site and unfortunatly none of the attached photos could do it justice.

Left Wat Pho and caught a Tuk Tuk back to the guest house where I packed my stuff and then checked out by 12. Dumped my gear in the lobby then went and found a place around the corner for lunch. Then wondered to the post office to send some things home. Unfortunatly the post office was closed so I had a wonder through the thai market near by.

Before long it was time to head back and kill some time writing emails before being picked up at the guest house and then making my way to the bus stop. Here I caught a VIP bus south towards the south east Islands which included Ko Tao.
The bus was comfortable and the girl next to me was a bit of a movie buf too so we made good conversation. Only downer was trying to sleep was difficult due to the noisey old French Swiss or Alsacienes ladies sitting behind me. Stopped of at midnight for a dinner break. Being quite late I only had some fruit. After the break we resumed our journey south and I finally managed to get some sleep. But before long at three in the morning we were dropped off at the travel office in Chumphon where we were forced to wait till 6:00 in the morning for the Ferry to the island of Ko Tao.

Thankfully they had a room with matts and small plastic cushions (of which I built a bed out of) which we were able to get some sleep in.

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