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Published: November 6th 2010
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The Grand Palace
The temple containing the Emerald Buddha in Wat Phra Kaew We did the usual tourist trail while we were in Bangkok, more or less replicating what I did last time I was here (see
Hitting The Bangkok Tourist Circuit). The Grand Palace was of course top of the list, so we dressed in clothes that we thought would be appropriate as I remembered the problems last time. It was still not up to what was expected, however, so we had to borrow some clothing before we could go in - it was free however.
There were people outside who were trying to direct us round the corner to get tickets to go in, which was obviously some kind of scam.
One of the main attractions in the Grand Palace appeared to be our daughter. The Thai people constantly wanted to talk to her and touch her hair, which was blond. A group of school children even wanted their picture taken with her. She felt like a film star and loved it - in fact she was sad when we got to Australia and no one was interested in her any more.
The Grand Palace was as stunning as I remember it, particularly the Wat Phra Karo area. One of the buildings here
Grand Palace Guard
One of the huge guards in the Grand Palace contained the Emerald Buddha, which was a lot smaller than we expected. There were very strict rules on behaviour in this part of the temple; we had to remove our shoes and we were not to point any part of our bodies towards the Buddha.
Almost as stunning was Wat Arun, which we visited afterwards. When I went to Wat Arun last time we were able to climb up to the third level, although the third set of steps were extremely steep. They have now either decided that this is too dangerous or they no longer want tourists climbing all over this national monument, so we were now only able to go up to the first level. We finished off this particular day by going to Wat Saket - the Golden Mount. Everyone was ringing the bells on the way to the top, so it was very difficult to tell the children that they were not allowed to - although we did moderate their ringing somewhat.
Something that had not changed were the various smells; some pleasant, some not so pleasant. There were smells that I had long since forgotten and I have no idea what they were,
Wat Phra Kaew
More buildings in the main Wat but the moment I came across them, the memories came straight back. Associated with many of the smells were all the food stalls along the streets, which are the best source for different things to eat in Bangkok. Some of the food on offer seemed too high risk for us, however the fruit went down very well on numerous occasions. Our son’s usual response was “I don’t like that” and this was set to be a constant theme of the holiday. In the case of Bangkok, that was certainly his loss.
Once we were done with the temples and the old area of Bangkok, we headed back to the more modern area for some shopping. It took a while as the traffic is a total and complete nightmare, to the point that travelling anywhere by road was starting to seriously ebb our will to live. Of course the Tuk Tuks had their usual way round this; weaving in the between the traffic and going on the wrong side of the road if necessary. This was great fun when in our youth, however as a family with two children, we had to question whether taking a Tuk Tuk was entirely
Wat Arun
The Temple of the Dawn responsible. It had to be done once however, but then the children loved it and were constantly badgering us to go on them again.
We were pretty certain that when we got the taxi back from the Golden Mount, I gave him a 1000B rather than a 100B note. The taxis seemed very reluctant to take us from there to our hotel - presumably as they would be stuck in traffic for an age - although he must not have been able to believe his luck.
We ate locally in the evening. When we were walking, we saw one of the most shocking things I had ever seen - a beggar with no legs dragging himself along the street.
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