Thailand - The Land of Smiles

The Grand Palace and Wat Po - Bangkok, part two

After fruitlessly seeking out the TAT we decided that the afternoon would be well spent checking out some cultural/touristy things in Bangkok. The major attraction being, of course, the Grand Palace - where the King and Queen live.

So we headed there in early afternoon - on foot - it's about a 20 minute walk from Khao San Road.

Inside the entrance at the Grand Palace - the Upper Terrace in the background

The Grand Palace was built in 1782 by King Rama I. It houses the throne halls, government offices and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (closed for renovations while we were there).

One of the main attractions is the Upper Terrace where four monuments are found; a reliquary in the shape of a golden chedi; the mondop - a repository for Buddhist sacred scriptures; a miniature model of Angkor Wat (in Cambodia); and the Royal Pantheon where statues of former Kings are enshrined.

The reliquary on the Upper Terrace

Angkor Wat model

A statue guarding the Royal Pantheon

upon entering the main area - this is part of the Hor Phra Rajphongsanusorn.

Entrance to Hor Phra Monthian Dharma

It didn't take long to walk around the complex - a lot of it is closed off to tourists. The picture taking was amazing - so much colour and detail in all the buildings. I can't post them all here, but here are a few of the more artsy shots I took.

Looks like a really big hat! (sort of)

One of many statues around the Terrace.

A sort of hand/foot that is a stair railing.

A close up of the tiny gold squares that cover the reliquary. (you can see my shadow with Ranya beside me.)

More of the reliquary.

After sufficiently wandering around we left the Grand Palace complex and headed next door to Wat Po, or Temple of the Reclining Buddha. My camera battery died as we were on our way there - ARGH!!! I was really upset about it, but at least we had Ranya's camera!

Wat Po was built in the 16th century and is the oldest, largest and most active temple in Bangkok. It is considered to be Thailand's first university because many of the monuments and artwork explains principles of religion, science, and literature.

I'm not sure why the Big Buddha is called that because the reclining Buddha is about 100 times it's size! We weren't expecting it when we walked in, but it must be the biggest Buddha in the world!

The head of the Reclining Buddha

The backside of the head.

Me and Ranya standing near it's feet.

The underside of the feet - inlaid with mother of pearl... also the biggest toes i've ever seen!

Just to make things even more "picturesque" here are some shots from around the grounds of Wat Po...

Big bell

Some giant statues.

A smaller statue in the garden.

We probably could have spent a little more time there, but we were tired from walking all day and had a long trek back to Khao San. We left the temple and started walking back... but we ended up taking a tuk-tuk...

Stay tuned for more tales of Thailand... coming next is the floating market and the Tiger Temple...

Thailand - The Land of Smiles

Bangkok - part one

I flew out of Seoul, Incheon International Airport on Sunday August 5th. I spent the previous day wandering around Seoul and bought my new camera at the electronics market. It's a Canon EOS 20D - and i love it. It was really great to hold a "real" camera in my hands again. I shot around 2000 photos in two weeks with it! And there are thousands more to come, I'm sure.

Anyway, I flew with Thai Air - which was lovely. I lucked out on my flight there when the two people sitting next to me changed seats after take-off to be closer to the TV - so I had three seats to myself to lie down and lounge on! It was the next best thing to being in business or first class! The food was really good, the service was decent, (the only thing I would say wasn't prefect actually) the seats were comfortable, and i got to use the business class bathroom since i was so close to the front of the plane - the furthest forward I've ever been actually (not on the wing like usual).

My lunch on Thai Air - pork curry with rice; fresh fruit; cake; coffee; salad; warm bun; kimchi; dried seaweed.

We landed a half hour early - which I thought was great, but Ranya landed late, so we had a bit of trouble finding each other, but it worked out in the end. After catching up for a bit, we grabbed a taxi into town. We had booked a hotel on Khao San Road (major backpacker area) the Siam Oriental Inn. At 550 baht (100 baht is about 3 dollars Canadian) a night it was a bit on the pricey side (for cheap accommodation) but we had two beds, air conditioning, a fan, and a hot shower.

We got there without incident - unless you count the haggling with the taxi driver which continued for half the trip - we eventually, and thankfully agreed to a price.

Khao San Road is known as the backpacker area of Bangkok - cheap food, drinks, shopping, hotels/hostels and a crazy night life. It is also close to all of the major cultural sites in the city, so it was perfect for us since we only had two days in the city.

After dumping our bags at the hotel we headed onto the street to eat some real pad thai from a street vendor - at 15 baht each, it was a steal!

Our pad Thai being prepared... the spring rolls were yummy too!

We went back to the hotel to nap for a bit, and take a shower, then headed into the night. We left Khao San and walked around randomly and found the grand palace - which is gorgeous when lit up at night. I didn't have my tripod, but tried to get a shot anyway.

The Grand Palace at night - sorry it's a little out of focus...

That when we were accosted by the tuk-tuk drivers hanging around the area. We finally agreed to go for a little tour with one of them - we got to see the "Big Buddha" Temple, but again it was night so the picture isn't great...

the Big Buddha

Then the driver told us he'd take us to the Tourist Authority of Thailand (TAT) to book any day trips we wanted to take. Of course, this was not the real TAT - which we knew so we didn't book anything with them. The tuk-tuk drivers in Bangkok will always try to take you somewhere other than where you want to go - usually it's somewhere that they'll get a commission from if you buy something. More later... we had many experiences with the tuk-tuks of Bangkok.

The driver dropped us off on Khao San where we had a couple of drinks at the Hippie Hi Bar. It had a really nice atmosphere, funky decorations, and good music. We talked until late and then hit the sack as we had a long day ahead of us on Monday.

Monday morning we decided to try to find the real TAT - which we did but they weren't at all helpful... it was a nice walk through the streets of Bangkok though. We had our photo taken by some random Thai lady. We passed by lots of government buildings, saw the Democracy Monument, Wat Ratchanadda, and the Old City Parapet.

The Democracy Monument

Again... Closer up...

Wat Ratchanadda

The Old City Parapet

I didn't shoot the government buildings - they were really big and always had a picture of the King on them but they weren't particularly beautiful or interesting.

Our walk back had a lot of random shots of different things... here are some examples:

mmm... street food... there are stalls everywhere!

Street cleaning - everything is manual in Thailand!

There are "gates" like this all over Bangkok.

The public phones are neon green and orange...

and the taxis are pink and purple! (there are black and yellow too...)

A canal running through the city.

A hotel displaying a giant photo of the King - Thais take their monarchy very seriously and you can be thrown in jail for insulting them... especially the King. There are photos like this all over the country.

This post is already too long... I'll save the real cultural stuff for tomorrow... so stay tuned for the Grand Palace and Wat Po (the reclining Buddha Temple) and more... these posts are going to take forever! If I feel up to it, I might post those later today... please bear with me, dear readers... I like to be detailed...