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September 8th 2012
Published: September 8th 2012
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I may not have done justice to Bangkok in my last entry. I was just sooooo excited about the tigers.

Bangkok is a very large, very crowded city as one would expect. It doesn't have much history, about 250 yrs as the capital and that is nothing by Asian standards. However, if you want to shop, this is the place. I preferred spending my time with a massage though.

After a very brief bus tour of the city (too much traffic to go anywhere really), we went to visit Wat Po temple which contains the Reclining Golden Buddha. That thing is big! But to know it it is all hand laid gold leaf is amazing to imagine. We saw someone restoring gold leaf at a temple the next day and it is a considerable manual effort. Our guide said there is a college program to train artists in gold leaf restoration.

The next day, Friday, we visited the Grand Palace where the King and Queen still reside. It is the King's 84th birthday this year and the Queen's 80th so there are pictures on billboards and street banners every few hundred feet with pictures from throughout their reign. They love the royal family here. Even though the King is more a figure head like Queen Elizabeth, he apparently does still makes statements that everyone has to follow.

The famous Jade Buddha is in a temple on the palace grounds. It is not very large but is of solid jade and about 500 years old. They change the dressing on the Buddha according to season so he was wearing his fall wrap when we saw him.

We had lunch, then went back for dinner, at a little hole in the wall local food stall. Ernest first thought it was a little too risky (never thought I'd hear that) but the guide said the cook had been at several restaurants throughout Asian but wanted his own small shop. He can cook 45 different dishes with his one wok and one burner. It was really good.

We leave Bangkok in the morning and I'm ok with that. Looking forward to seeing more Thai countryside.


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Buddha statues in Wat PoBuddha statues in Wat Po
Buddha statues in Wat Po

Each Buddha is "assigned" to someone for upkeep
scale model of Angkor Watscale model of Angkor Wat
scale model of Angkor Wat

this is here because the Khmer occupied the country when the palace was begun


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