Bangkok #2: The Grand Palace and Wat Pho

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We got up pretty early, so that we could make a good start today. We skipped getting any breakfast at the hotel and we headed to Seven Eleven to stock up on breakfast there. I stocked up on coffee, a regular sandwich and a toastie. I think I have developed an addiction to these Seven Eleven toasties, especially because today's was heated correctly and wasn't cold in the centre, like last night's was. Today, I had the tuna toastie, nom nom, it was delicious. I scoffed it as we walked down to catch the boat across the river. The boat was about a five minute walk from our hotel. We turned up and weren't really sure that we were in the right place, but a bloke told us that we were and to pull up a pew, as the boat would be arriving in a few minutes. The boat turned up and we paid the princely sum of 3.5 baht to cross the river. The boat was pretty small, and it only took about five minutes to cross the river.

We alighted the boat and walked down the pier about ten meters, so that we could take the tourist express boat. A single ticket costs 40 baht, a lot more than the little boat we had just taken. We took the boat up the river. The boat journey was nice, and we passed a lot of sights along the banks of the river. On the boat, there was a guide pointing out things that we should look at and telling us, which stop was next and what there was to see there. We got off at the stop for The Grand Palace. The palace was about a five minute walk from the docks. We had to walk through a market to get to the main road. Going through the market, I definitely felt back in South East Asia. We made it out of the market and to the palace walls. We walked down to the entrance. It was hilarious walking down as the palace has loud speakers blasting out messages to us tourists. The best one was "Do not trust anyone". We had a good giggle at that one.

We managed to enter the palace grounds without getting in trouble from the guards. We headed to the ticket booth and bought our tickets. They are pretty expensive, at 500 baht, about a tenner, a ticket. It was boiling hot, so we headed into the little museum next to the ticket office, and had a look around and more importantly cool down using their air con. The museum was pretty small, but housed lots of royal paraphernalia to look at. We left the museum and joined the queue to enter the palace. It was a bit of a clusterfuck and we were all separated on our way in. Me and Tash got through, but we lost Shell on the way. We sat and waited for her, but she didn't appear, so we set off to look around.

The whole complex is huge and it took us a good couple of hours to walk around it all. The palace is so ornate, it must of took years to complete it. So much effort had been put into making the whole place look beautiful. Sometimes, it did feel a bit overwhelming as there was not a surface, untouched from decoration. Building the palace began on 6th May 1782 and has been the official residence of the King of Siam (as it was known then) and Thailand. The king, his court and also the royal government used the palace until 1925. When the monarchy gave up their absolute power in 1932, the government offices moved out of the palace. The current king, King Rama IX, doesn't reside at the Grand Palace, but it is still used for official events, such as ceremonies and state events. The palace was beautiful an you could see all the care that is put in to preserving it. We saw gardeners chopping and sculpting the trees. In one of the halls,restoration work was underway. We saw artists carefully repainting the walls by hand. The hall was huge and the walls were covered in designs from floor to ceiling. I think there were three artist working on the restoration. It must take them forever to do it. I bet they have the patience of a saint. The Grand Palace is beautiful and definitely worth its high entrance fee, when you see all the detail in the place.

After exiting the palace we were all starving, so we decided to find a place for lunch. We didn't have to go far, there were a few restaurants mixed in with the shops in the other side of the road opposite the palace. We found a cute looking place and headed in. We all ordered Pad Thai and ice coffees. The restaurant was tiny and we were a bit cramped around the table. The coffees were nice and gave us a much needed jolt of caffeine. I enjoyed my Pad Thai, and I polished off most of Tash's too, as there was too much dried shrimp in it for her to enjoy.

Our next port of call was Wat Pho, so we hopped back on the boat and headed down there. It was only one stop away, so really quick, to get there. We entered the outer part of the temple and then paid our entrance fees, 100 baht each, we were given a ticket, which had an extra part attached to claim a free bottle of water, we definitely needed it in this heat. After collecting our water, we headed for a look around the temple. Wat Pho is named after a monastery in India, where Buddha is believed to have lived. It is one of the oldest and largest wats in Bangkok and is home to the Reclining Buddha. We headed over to the Reclining Buddha first, you have to cover up to view the Buddha. He is huge and stretches the whole way down the hall. What a magnificent sight! We walked all the way around the Buddha, taking photos of him. It was hard to get him all in one shot. At the bottom, he had these gorgeous patterns carved on to his feet. We exited the hall from the other side. There was a ritual thing that you could partake in, we saw some people doing it. Lining the edge of the hall, there were all these small pots, and as people walked by they put a coin in each pot. I presume it was for good luck. We then wandered around the rest of the temple complex. It was very similar to the Grand Palace in that it was so ornate. So much effort had been put in to making it look amazing. My photos definitely don't do the place justice.

We took the boat back down the river and then the little boat across to our side. Of course we stopped off at Seven Eleven for some snacks. I think we had a bit of chill out time by the pool and then we headed out for the evening. I was desperate to go for a massage, so we went off to look at the massage shops we had seen on our way to the boat earlier that day. There were three shops near our hotel. We didn't really like the look of the first one, as you could see the massage chairs from the window. The other two were next door to each other. We picked the first one, as the second one had children in it. Kids running around hardly make for a relaxing massage experience. So we went into the other shop. We looked at the menu and picked what we wanted. However there was a problem, we couldn't all be seen at the same time because the foot lady was busy. Disheartened, we headed to the place with the children, but there prices were more expensive and they didn't have what we all wanted.

So we took a walk to look for some dinner. The area around our restaurant is residential and pretty quiet. There were a few local restaurants, open fronted, no air-con, and bright fluro strip lighting. They didn't really appeal, we wanted something with a bit more ambiance, and more importantly air-con, I didn't want to be sweating into my food. We walked along the main road for a while, but there wasn't much, so we headed to the restaurant that was on the corner near our hotel. The mun was a bit strange. Each dish was offered with a variety of different noodles or rice, and with either chicken, pork or seafood. We were all starving, so we ordered some starters. I got these cheese shrimp things. They kind of looked like fish fingers, but were prawn instead of fish and they had what seemed to be those plastic processed cheese slices inside. It was a bit weird, not amazing, but definitely edible. For my main course I ordered Penang Red Curry with chicken, rice and a fried egg. I'm not really sure if fried egg goes with red curry, but I love eggs and could hardly refuse adding on to my meal for the sake of a few baht. The food was okay, nothing amazing, but it was cheap and filled us up nicely.

We decided to head back to the massage place and see if there was room for us all now. Yay, there was! I opted for a full body oil massage. The owner told me that I would have to have a male masseuse, but I was fine with that. We picked the oil we wanted, I think the one we picked was called Thai Flower, or something like that. Our feet were washed, heavenly, and then we were lead upstairs. We were told to strip and given disposable knickers to wear. The massage was really nice, it's been so long since I had one, I've forgotten what they are like. I also forgot how ticklish my upper thighs are. I was trying so hard not to laugh, the masseuse must of thought I was mad, it was meant to be a relaxing massage and I was trying not to giggle. Feeling suitably relaxed we headed back to the hotel, because it was after midnight we had to buy our beers from the hotel bar, as the beer fridge in Seven Eleven was locked up. We sat outside by the pool, chilling and chatting.

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