En route to Cambodia we had an overnight in Bangkok. This will be the shortest entry for the trip!! We Landed around 9.30pm and by the time we got to our hotel on Sukhumvit the bar was closed … crap!!! Our plan was to have a drink, I mean you’d have to it’s Bangkok right!! The very sweet lady behind reception told us that the hotel tuk tuk driver would drop us to the main road where there were bars so without even checking our room we left our bags so we could grab one in the closest pub we could find. So guess where we ended up – of course, an Irish bar!!! The drunken leprechaun (next door to Hooters!!). A drink and a snack and we were happily satisfied.. no major craic and we were knackered so we headed back to get a few hours sleep before we launched ourselves on the town for the kings birthday the next day!!!
It’s amazing what you can see in a few hours with the right attitude and the right pair of shoes. After a lavish breakfast at Hotel U Suk we took the sky train to the national stadium and cabbed the rest of the way to the royal palace. We weren’t sure what to expect with it being the kings birthday.. I’d read various different things from “it’s free in to all the attractions ” to “everything will be closed as it’s a national holiday “.. neither were true! We had to pay in (no problem but note it’s 500 bt into the palace – that’s about 20 quid!) and the place was mobbed. There were people everywhere.. a million tour groups walking around with various different flags waving and half of the crowd didn’t even seem to be going into the palace they were circling it (pilgrimage maybe!!)..
Anyways we started with Wat Phra Kaeo and saw the massive reclining Buddha and all the other cool pagodas, statues and everything around.
I particularly liked the list of buddhas that I remember seeing back in 2004 on my first visit where I was obsessed with understanding each Buddha and the position and mudra (hand positions). As I write this I’m looking forward to looking back on the photos I took back then.
Next we made our way through the throngs of visitors and after some confusion made it into the palace grounds. The priority was the Emerald Buddha. Now this is a very famous statue of a Buddha – it’s small but it’s placed on a very impressive layer upon layer of gold. No photos allowed but the temple itself is impressive and you can take photos of that:
We spent a fair amount of time looking at the murals which cover a huge amount of wall space around the temple grounds:
The kings actual residence and soldiers:
Leaving was challenging.. some exits were “Thai only” – seriously! We made it outside, said happy birthday to the king and we were on our way. A nice lunch and off to the airport.
On the way to the airport I was fascinated by some of the buildings and the construction work..
odohertyelaine 