Bangkok - Day 1

We left for Bangkok Friday morning. It was my first flight on Air Asia which is one of the low cost airlines here in Asia. It was a decent flight and reminded me much of the flights in the US. Nothing special but safe and arrived on time. The airport is about a 45 ride from the city and currently the only way in town is via taxi. Thankfully we didn't hit too much traffic and had an uneventful journey.

After lunch we headed out to explore the city. The hotel was right on the river so we booked a longboat to take us down to the Royal Palace area. Here is what the longboat looks like:
(I know it is kind of hard to see since it was zipping past us so quickly.) Instead of going directly down the river the driver took us through the plongs (canals). It was amazing to see some of the houses right on the canals.
Some interesting questions came to mind while we were riding past these. Where does the drinking water come from? What happens when the house falls down, do they rebuild? Where does the sewage go? We couldn't see any pipes so were curious if it just dumped into the river.
Some of the houses were just amazing and well kept while others looked almost like areas in a shanty town. We saw a lot of families out cooking, relaxing, fishing, and even bathing on their porches or through the open air doors. It was a great boat ride because it showed a part of Bangkok you would never otherwise see. It also brought to our attention the fact that Bangkok is a series of these plongs which you would never be aware of if you only traveled by car.

Our longboat driver dropped us off at the pier just down the road from the Royal Palace. We were unable to get entry to the Palace because it was late in the day. Also, you must have long pants on which neither of us did. Here is a picture of what I could see from over the palace wall:
This picture does not do the beauty of these buildings justice. Many of them are topped with gold and other shiny items. I will definitely come back and take a proper tour through the palace grounds. As an aside, the King and Queen of Thailand no longer reside in the palace. They have a home in the western part of Thailand where they spend most of their time.

Speaking of the Queen, her birthday is August 12th which is a National holiday. The Thai take great pride in their monarchy which is shown through the amazing photos of the royal family throughout the city. You have probably experienced this as well if you've eaten in a true Thai restaurant in the US. Someplace in it they will have a picture of the King and Queen. This is one of the many pictures I saw during my trip:

Since we couldn't get into the Grand Palace we decided we wanted to go to one of the temples to see the Reclining Buddha. We followed the map and came across many temples that were closed but couldn't seem to find the one that housed the Reclining Buddha. We finally passed a temple that appeared to be open but the guard at the door said it was closed. We wandered past it trying to decide what to do next. We opted to head to the amulet market which was back the other way...as we were passing the entrance to the temple that was just closed the guy winked at Patrecia and hurried us through the door. How cool is that - they let us in!

We were at Wat Po which is a beautiful temple where there are active monks. We were lucky to be allowed into the temple to sit and admire the beauty of it.
I didn't stay for very long inside because I always feel a bit odd in religious buildings...almost as if I am intruding on the faith of those who follow that religion. I did learn something while I was in there. You have to take your shoes off to enter and you always kneel in a Buddhist temple because you never want the soles of your feet to face the Buddha.

As were were leaving the temple we saw a number of the monks arriving to begin their afternoon chants. It was interesting to watch from the outside looking in. Especially coming from a Christian family I am very interested in other religions.
We left the temple and spent some time wandering around the grounds of Wat Po. There are some amazing buildings and artwork and golden statues. It is one of those experiences where the beauty of it all cannot be captured by photograph or in written words...you really just have to be in the moment experiencing it. Here are a couple of photos to try and give you at least a sense of it:

It was a cloudy day on Friday, so I can only imagine how beautiful these buildings would look in the bright sunlight. The level of detail and care put into their creation and upkeep is incredible.

As we were wandering through the temple grounds we realized that the Reclining Buddha was literally right in front of us. It was so much fun to just be wandering around Bangkok, getting disappointed by not finding our initial location, being let in to a different place, and then to discover we were at the place we were looking for all along. Some of the best journeys are the kind where you lose your way only to find you weren't really lost at all...

Anyway, the Reclining Buddha is this beautiful gold Buddha that is truly reclining. Even in this position he is close to 150' tall. You enter the temple and the first thing you see is this:
The reaction from everyone, regardless of language was wow! It was awesome in the true definition of the word. Here's a full-body shot:

I am not sure why I am so drawn to this particular Buddha but I am. Maybe it is because you can sense his greatness in his sheer size and the fact that he is made of gold but on the other hand he must be a pretty cool guy to just be lounging about.

Nearby to this, we came across reclining buddha cat:
We left the Wat Po temple around 6pm and took a water taxi back to our hotel. We relaxed for a bit in the hotel room before getting cleaned up and heading out to dinner. We met one of Patrecia's employees for dinner in the city. It was a yummy dinner of Thai noodle soup. Mine had pork and parts of pork of which I am not entirely sure of the origin. It tasted fantastic.

We headed back to the hotel around 11pm to get a good rest for our Saturday of touring. More to come...