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Published: January 24th 2007
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Bangkok: The Grand Palace, Wat Pho and Khao San Road
Adventures in Bangkok There’s no way to get to know a new country like getting off of your rear end and going out. While yesterday was a lazy day that didn’t involve getting out much, today was a day of exploration and activity. To be frank, I find Thailand to be a rather scary place because it is so completely foreign. But, when I woke up this morning I knew that the only way I could get acclimated and feel comfortable was to just get out and do it.
We walked out of the neighborhood to the main road and caught a taxi to the Nonthanburi Pier. Of course, even this wasn’t an easy task. The taxi driver said he knew what we meant but we ended up at the Nonthanburi Palace hotel. Thanks to the help of some parking attendants and a hotel concierge we were able to get back on track and get to our destination.
At the pier we caught a boat down the river to downtown Bangkok. On the boat we met a French gentlemen who talked to us
for most of the 30 minute boat ride. He never gave us his name but shared his views on Bangkok (he had already been here most of a week) and talked to us about France. It was really nice to have some one to talk with on the trip and made the time go much faster.
Our stop in downtown Bangkok was about the 10th stop on the river. We got off and aimlessly wandered for a few minutes just trying to get our bearings. It can be really tough to figure out where you are when the road signs are written in a language you can’t even read.
Wat Pho…the temple of the Reclining Buddha After wandering for a while we came to the first of the sights that we had planned to see. Wat Pho (pronounced Poe) is a large complex of temples that has a gigantic Buddha statue and a large Thai massage school.
The temple structures are amazingly beautiful because of their ceramic tile work. Each temple is covered from top to bottom with intricately hand laid tile in the shape of flowers and other deigns. Up close these structures
take one’s breath away. As a whole the complex makes one wonder what effort it must have taken to accomplish.
At the actual Buddha temple, everyone must take their shoes off before entering. Thus the outside of the building is surrounded with little shoe cubby holes for people to leave their stuff behind. Inside the temple, the Buddha is in the center of a large room which is held up by columns which are spaced about 3 feet apart. Due to the number of columns it is almost impossible to see the whole Buddha at one time. It is easily 150 feet long and about 1 story tall at its highest point.
While the Buddha is very impressive, the rest of the temple is definitely worth mentioning. All of the walls are covered with paintings from the floor all the way to the ceiling which is easily two and a half stories tall. Along the back side of the Buddha is a set of offering bowls which line the outside wall. By paying 10-20 bhat you can get a group of coins to place in each bowl as a prayer offering. Kel prayed for both of us while
I ran around and took pictures (surprise)!
The rest of the temple complex is very large and has many other statues and tile towers. We walked around for about an hour and really got a chance to see a ton of stuff. We were very tempted to get a foot massage but decided against it because we hadn’t eaten and had a ton of other things that we wanted to get done.
The Grand Palace We left Wat Pho and walked the 15 minute walk to the entrance of the Grand Palace of the King of Thailand. This Palace is the thing to do in Bangkok, it is recommended in every guide book and the crowds show it. There were people everywhere in the Palace facility.
We started in a museum of coins and Thai Royalty decoration. The museum had a bunch of royal swords, jewelry and coins. It was pretty cool to read about the present royal family and see historic decorations which are used in formal ceremonies.
We then entered the palace temple which contains a very famous Buddha statue called the Emerald Buddha (actually made of jade). The temple was
amazingly ornate in gold, tile work and reflective tiles. As we approached the actual temple there was a giant golden building, various statues and a small replica of Angkor Wat (the most famous Wat in SE Asia located in Siem Reap, Cambodia). We went to the temple and sat for about fifteen minutes and gazed upon the Buddha and the golden shrine that he sat on. The Buddha is presently in his winter attire which consists of a gold robe (while in the museum we saw the summer and rainy season attire). Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the Buddha so you will have to imagine the sight of a two foot tall solid jade Buddha on top of a one and a half story gold, ruby and emerald dais.
We left the temple and quickly looked at the palace as we rushed on to get lunch. By this time it was 2pm and I was starving. We left the temple grounds and walked toward Khao San Road which is the major backpacker’s area of Bangkok. The walk was about an hour due to the difficulty of figuring out where we were and figuring out how to
Mike with the Golden Buddha's feet
To give you some perspective as to the size of the statue cross the crazy roads.
The roads here are like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my life. There are almost no stop lights in Bangkok, all of the roads have dividers which don’t allow U turns and people drive insanely fast. Thus, whenever we needed to cross a road we had to literally take our lives in our hands and run for it. It turns out that the traffic is very nice about stopping but it still feels insanely dangerous. As we approached Khao San Road, we came to a group of six roads that came together at one intersection. Here there were a few stop lights but it was still crazy. We made it, but it was still pretty wild.
Khao San Roads We walked around the area for about 30 minutes before we settled on a restaurant. We sat in a table right on the sidewalk and watched as our food was cooked in a wok on the side of the street. Sounds kinda sketchy from your angle, I’m sure, but this was a better choice than most. The food was great and incredibly cheap. I had a beef and rice dish and Kel
had Pad Thai with Tofu. The whole meal cost 3 dollars…cheap!!
We walked around after dinner and looked at a bunch of the shops in the area. Clothes are very nice, hand made, and cheap. Shoes were everywhere and there were even some stores with bags, purses…pretty much anything that any woman in the world would want on a shopping spree…except it’s all cheap and a knock off.
After about two hours of walking around we started to get a little tired and decided to get a cab back to Jack and Diane’s house. This, once again, was easier said than done. The first cab we jumped in didn’t know where we were talking about. The second cab we stopped would only do the trip for a ridiculous dollar amount. Finally we found a cab that would do it for what we thought of as cheap (turns out we still overpaid) and went on our way.
Our cab driver was really great. He was 26 and had three kids. He taught us some Thai on the way and we talked about Bangkok and the area. His English was far from perfect but he tried and that’s what
truly counts. We gave him a nice tip because we liked him and it made him SOOO happy. We may have overpaid but it was completely worth it to see the look on the guy’s face when we gave him the money.
Since then we’ve been attempting to plan the rest of this leg of the trip and eating some dinner. Its getting late so we will be off to bed soon.
Hope you are all well. Keep reading and we will keep writing!
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