Wow a really long day but a very good one. Unfortunately for the first time we managed to end up on a bus full of moany people. Ach well – it had to happen at least once. It didn’t spoil the day tho. It was a 2 hr drive from Laem Chabang port to Bangkok but the tour guide Jonathon pointed out lots of interesting things on the drive in. I hadn’t realised Bangkok is based around lots of canals – a bit like Venice. Unlike most of the other cities we’ve visited it doesn’t have lots of high rises.
Our first stop was at the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Budda. It was incredible! So many ornate golden buildings and statues. The walls inside the courtyard were painted with amazingly ornate murals. All the halls have different meanings. We got shown round some of them briefly, but I really could have spent hours there looking at all the details. The photos really don’t do the place justice! There’s even a mini model of Anchor What in Cambodia.
We went inside the Emerald Budda temple. It’s actually made of one solid peice of jasper about 2 ft high. It is dressed in different costumes according to the season. We had to wear trousers and t-shirts as shorts and short sleeved tops arn’t allowed. We also had to take our shoes off to go in the actual temple
In the grounds of the Grand Palace we saw the reception hall and a lot of the other buildings. We were lucky to be able to see the palace and temple as it’s the King’s 83rd Birthday on the 5th (all the best people have that birthday!) so the area is being closed from the afternoon to finish preparations for his birthday celebrations. We saw the royal guard practicing their marching. One poor trumpet player managed to start playing in completely the wrong song – only to be hastily prodded by his friend! We think he’d have had an earful from his superior when he got back to barracks! It was incredibly hot so we didn’t envy them in their full uniform. We spent our time hopping from one piece of shade to the next.
After leaving the Grand Palace we walked though a food market to the river. We passed a group of teenage school children who were doing stunning sketches of the buildings. We boarded our river boat for an hour cruise down and up the river. It was really interesting to see and the temples and buildings along the river front were beautiful. Fishing is forbidden by temples so the fish know they’re safe and congregate there. We fed them bread rolls and great big catfish came up to the surface to feed – they were about a foot and a half long! We also saw the building where the royal barges are readied for the king’s birthday.
We finished the cruise at the Ramada hotel and got on the bus to lunch which was at a cultural centre. We had a big thai lunch then had a display of traditional dancers. After lunch we went for the much promised shopping trip, but it turned out to be a very very expensive high end shop so we didn’t buy anything.
It was a really good day and I’d definitely like to come back and explore Bangkok more.
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