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Published: September 30th 2011
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Past Years
Previous happenings at the Palace Arriving in Bangkok I had decided I would stay in the Siam Square area. This meant I to first take the airport shuttle bus to the public bus station, from there a minibus to OnNut then two sky trains! It too a lot longer than I thought, I eventually arrive around ten. There was about half a dozen hotels on one small street but still the cheap ones had gone and the others didn't have single rooms left so I ended up treating myself for two nights. That will teach me to not arrive late without a booking.
After trying out some is Thailand famous street food I relaxed and decided what I wanted to do in Bangkok. In the morning I got up early and the shower was really hot, not just warm hot but really hot, so good.
I managed to work out which bus I needed to take to get to the museum, I then spent the morning first around the National museum then the Grand Palace. The national museum is so big you could spend all day in it but as I didn't want to I stayed mostly in the Thai History gallery, then visiting
On the March
Marching through the Palace Grounds the art galleries. The art galleries were filled with Budda's from various centuries and many different ceramics. It shows how old Buddism is in Thailand. The Thai History gallery takes you right back to the 7th century through to the present. So now I know all about the Kings and the Burmese.
I then walked over to the Grand Palace and along with a few thousand others took a look around. Wow is it an enormous tourist trap! Luckily if you just walk away from the entrance where everyone is trying to take photos you can take photos without people in them taking photos! Its amazingly beautiful and the artwork is stunning, the walls all around the Palace tell a story of Thailand's history and the Kings and previous Kings life's. It was established in 1782 and if also the grounds of the Government buildings, Temple of the Emerald Budda. It covers a total of 218,000sq/m.
After lunch it was time to head for Bangkok's enormous weekend market, and wow was it big! I have no idea how big it was, you couldn't possibly walk around it all you had no idea where you had been or where
to find what you wanted to buy. I tried some mango with sticky rice which was yummy and I bought some earings that I had been looking for for months. But other than that I escaped with some money left.
Tesco! There was I Tesco just down the road from the hotel so I went there to buy a few things, it took me so long. I used to be able to do two weeks shopping in the time it took me to buy seven things (two were bottles of water). There was just too much choice and I still couldn't find what I wanted. I'm just too used to having no choice now, just buy what there is.
On my second morning in Bangkok I visited the Wat Pho temple then the Jim Thompson house. I even managed to work out how to post a letter although it took me half an hour to do so.
Wat Pho houses Thailand's largest collection of Budda's, the great reclining Budda and is also an education centre having a massage school in the grounds. They have a large collection of Budda's from Sukhothai and Ayuttaya. It wasn't as busy
Goldern Temples
Amazing artitecture the Palace but it was just too hot.
Not far from the hostel Jim Thomson's house. Thomson was an American who served in WW2 and fell in life with Thailand, Bangkok and the local silk. His house is now a museum which I did a tour of. He has I very large collection of old Thai paintings, ceramics, silks and pottery. He made an international business out of selling Thai silk. He mysteriously disappeared in the Cameron Highland's in 1967.
I then took the train to Ayutthaya about two hours north of Bangkok.
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