On our penultimate day of our 60 day travels, we all mutually agreed that the focus should be on culture.
Thus we set off after our suburb hotel buffet breakfast (in which Jim and Liz had an Asian breakfast including dim sum, and stir fried fish) for the Grand Palace and Wat Kaew (both on the same site) - one of the "must see" sights in Bangkok. Its the former residence of several kings of Thailand, and still is used for diplomatic activities and as the accommodation for visiting heads of state (etc) to Thailand.
To get there we needed to take a boat, and wished to get on the local ferry which is half the price (30 pence) of the "tourist boat". We were therefore knarked when the local ferry drew up to be told it was "full" - it clearly wasn't and steered towards the tourist boat. It was hard to push our way through with the tourists who had been presold their tourist boat tickets. (Both boats are run by the Bangkok authorities). Anyway we felt it was poetic justice when we got on the boat (you can pre-buy tickets or buy them on the boat) and never be asked for a ticket - so we got our ride free! (Small victory for us!)
On the way from the ferry to the grand palace we stopped in a park outside the palace for a drink in the shade (the park being the Bangkok equivalent to London's Horseguards parade). Here we were approached by some delightful 16 year old school children who had been sent out to "interview" foreigners about their visit to Thailand as part of their English project. Most amusing of all, was seeing them trying to decide who would dare approach us - they are all very shy and incredibly polite!
The grand palace is massive. Its also very strict on dress rules - and we thought we had planned for this by taking appropriate clothes. However when we got there, they were not appropriate enough so we had to join the 15 minute queue in the heat for a (free) clothes loan - so our best laid plans failed. The girls in particular enjoyed the Grand Palace - especially the famous Emerald Buddha housed in Wat Phra Kaew - they were a bit disappointed not to actually go into the kings former accommodation quarters within the Grand Palace.
After a good three hours in the grand palace (which fortunately had a few museums within the grounds that had airconditioning) we moved on to Wat Pho. This temple (or series of temples) is over 20 acres in size and house more than 1000 Buddha's in various states of repairs. Its the largest temple in Bangkok. We saw workers restoring some - a huge job as (in the same way as the grand palace) many are made up of huge number of very small mosaics - put on with tweezers.
Wat Pho houses the large reclining Buddha some 46 metres long (150 foot) and 15 metres high (50 foot). Its incredibly impressive.
From there we all got more ambitious and ate at a street stall. Our friend Jackie in Australia swears by street stalls providing they don't have a linen tablecloth and you can see the food being cooked in front of you. This passed on all accounts and we had some delicious and cheap stir fried rice and pad thai.
Then it was back on the public river boat - again we were never asked to pay- probably on account of it being full and the conductor not able to battle her way through (although we were more than willing to pay the 30p). We decided that this particular boat had a learner driver at the helm such was the way he slammed into the various piers en route!. From the boat terminal stop we then took our hotel ferry shuttle as ever - by this time, after a hot, humid day it had started to drizzle. We politely declined the offer from one of the hotel doormen of an umbrella from the hotel pier to the hotel - all of 20 metres or so. To satisfy Joesph we all went for a swim in the rain.
Tomorrow we have our last day in Bangkok before heading to the airport in the evening. Our plan is to check out of the hotel mid morning, leave bags in the hotel bag store and go up to the Ko San Road area (backpackers area) for food and a mooch before returning to the hotel for a swim then get changed into clean clothes and take a taxi to the airport early evening. The flight for London departs at 12.20 am.
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