Day 26: Historical Bangkok

Today, Mark and his fiancée, Wan, took us on a tour of historic Bangkok, taking us to all of the must-see sights.  We met them at a café, two stops away from our hotel on the Skytrain, and right next to his apartment building.  He showed us his apartment, and then we headed out for the day.  The historic area of Bangkok is located to the west of the major business center, so the Skytrain does not go there.  Instead, we took the Skytrain down to the river, which wraps around the south and west sides of the city.  On the river, we took one of the many ferries, which took us straight up to where we wanted to go.

Looking up the river from one of the boats we took.

Our first stop was Wat Pho, and temple complex, full of temples of many different types.  Inside of one of the temples was the Reclining Buddha.  This Reclining Buddha is the largest in the world, and it certainly lives up to its name.  The head alone was probably twenty feet high, and the whole thing was at least 100 feet long.  Also in this temple were 108 pots, and in each of which you dropped a coin and made a wish.  We weren’t quite sure what the significance of 108 was, but we think it is related to the Buddha.

Near the entrance to Wat Pho.

The Reclining Buddha, or his head, at least.

The entire Buddha.

In the rest of the complex, besides other temples, there were dozens of pyramidal structures, varying in size.  Each of these was built to house the ashes of an influential monk, with the size correlating to the importance of the monk.  The intricate decoration of both the spires and the temples was striking, with whole structures covered in tile designs, and everything with a touch of gold.

One of the shrine towers.

More towers.

There were dozens of them, some small, some big.

Looking all around

These demons guard the temple.

Holding up the tower.

After walking around Wat Pho for a while, we took a tuk-tuk over to the Grand Palace, which houses several historical residences of the king, as well as more temples.  It is much like Wat Pho, except bigger and more elaborate.  The buildings were just incredible, some of the most elaborately decorated I have ever seen.  They had thousands of jewels on them, and many were coated in gold paint.  One in particular, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, had its entire surface, inside and out, covered in either paintings, jewels, or gold.  None of us had ever seen anything quite like it.  Except, of course, that Mark and Wan had been there several times.

The painting were incredibly detailed and went on forever.

A close up.

The Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

We finished up the Grand Palace by seeing the most recently used historical palace, which has a much more European design and still looks very new.  We then took a boat to the other side of the river to find lunch.  Right at the dock where we got off the boat, there was a massive school of catfish.  We bought some bread, and started throwing it to the fish, which would go absolutely insane fighting over the bread.  In fact, when we threw bread to areas of the water that didn’t seem to have catfish, they would suddenly rise up and clobber the bread.  Having fed the fish, it was time for us to eat.  We went to a nice Thai restaurant, and the food was very good.  We ate family style, so there were lots of choices, from pork omelet to crab meat.

Lunch

After lunch, we walked down Khao San Road, a market shopping street, until we decided it was far too hot.  The market was neat, but much like most of the other markets I have been to in Asia.  We took a cab down to the bar that Mark took us to the first day.  We spent a long time there, shooting pool, playing shuffleboard, throwing darts, and meeting some of Mark’s friends.  Finally, we had to say goodbye and head out to prepare for our flight the next day.

Wan and I won this game of 301 without going over once.

Throwing darts