Mackens in Japan: Thailand Day 3

We met John (our Thai guide at breakfast). The rest of our tour party are still stuck in Heathrow due to the bad weather so we had his undivided attention for just us today. We hope everyone one else arrives tomorrow as we have to leave without them in the evening if they are not here. One of John's colleagues only has 1 person on his tour!

We headed off to the Grand Palace, which is the ceremonial home of the king, so he doesn't really live there but turns up for ceremonial duties and special occaisions. The palace is spread over 60 acres and includes three major buildings; the coronation room, the reception hall and the government building.

The first area we visited consists a series of highly decorated stupas covered in gold leaf and tiny pieces of coloured glass. Very beautiful especially in the bright sunlight. (By the way its about 30C here during the day and very sunny. Sorry everyone struggling in the snow in the UK at the moment)

Next stop was the hall which contains the emerald budda. Neve thought he was a little small and he isn't emerald, he is made of jade. However he sits on top of a huge gold seat surrouded by lots of other gold artifacts. They change his clothes as the seasons change. It winter now so he wears a gold jacket to keep him warm. After we saw the budda you have to drip holy water on your head with a lotus flower stalk. The Emerald budda room is surrounded by 112 gold statues. Felix checked to make sure they were all there. They were!

We then went to the coronation room which contains the kings throne and an old bed that the new king couldn't fit in. No so exciting but still very sparkly. They also use lots of mother of pearl to decorate things. See photo.

Then we moved onto the big reception hall building. At this point in the palace building they obviously decided they needed something a bit more European so employed some guy from the UK to knock up something a little more Buckingham palace. In fact it looks like Thai roofer meets Buckingham Palace brickie. We also looked around the palace armoury at which point Felix decided the tour wasn't quite so boring after all. The king has an extensive collection of pistols with gold leaf inlay and ivory stocks. Nice....

After the Grand Palace we headed for Wat Pho which is another temple containing the huge reclining Budda. This temple is also the founding location for Thai massage and still houses the massage school. The budda is huge, about 64 metres long and housed in a special building. Neve decided this budda was a more satisfactory size.

Around the back are a long row of begging bowls which you pay to get a small bowl of pennies, one penny for each begging bowl. I think it raises money for the temple without the monks having to stand around.

We then stopped for lunch in a local cafe. It was 120 bat (about £2.50) for 2 cokes, 2 waters and 2 bowls of noodles. It is very cheap here. We then walked around a very smelly local markets which seemed to specialise in dried fish. I could still smell the fish on my clothes when we got back to the hotel.

After lunch we took the ferry across the river to Wat Arun (temple of the Dawn). We were able to walk up some steep steps up the stupa to get to a viewing platform to get a good view of the city.

That was the end of the days tours so we headed back to the hotel. The kids insist that we travel by Tuk Tuk rather than taxi as it is more fun. This time we have nutter driver who I'm sure wasn't far from two wheels only around the corners. Scream if you want to go faster.

We spent the next couple of hours pool side before heading out to Thanon Khao San for dinner and more exploring. This is the backpacker centre of Bangkok we went to last night but this time we did a little more exploring. First stop was the fish spa. These are tanks of flesh eating fish that nibble the dead skin off your feet. Bit odd but had to be done. Check out the video.

Then we had pizza for dinner. Decided we need to feed Felix back up after several meals of picking at Thai food. Whilst we finished dinner and drank the remainder of the beers we sat Neve down at the hair braiding stall and got her a holiday hair do. It was 80 bat (about £1.80)

Before we went home we walked around all the little stalls picking up T-shirts, croaking frogs and bracelets. In addition to the Tiger balm we had got from traditional pharmacy earlier in the day.

Finally we got the obligatory Tuk Tuk ride back to hotel. This time at a more sedate pace although I think it took the driver a couple of laps of the centre of town to figure out where our hotel was. We are considering getting Tuk Tuk for our next car. It would be perfect for school run and turn more heads than all the boring Porches that roll into Bedford school each morning.

Beautiful real-gold-leaf covered stupa - very shiny!

Green 'Boss' demon (but apparently he was a goody becuase he was wearing a ring) Felix was having a grump, in part becuase it was 'really boring' and in part becuase the malaria pills we're taking are anti-biotics, so make you feel a bit sick for an hour or so

This building had a really pretty roof - it was all decorated with old pottery which was formed into thousands of little flowers!

This is a bit bizarre - it's a 1 in 100 scale model of Ankor Wat in Cambodia - appartenly Ankor Wat is the biggest Buddhist temple in the world, and many Buddhists therefore want to go there, so the Thai Buddhists decided to build one in their temple so the people could visit it more easily! Neve was most satisfied becuase her friend Fiona is spending Christmas visiting Laos and Cambodia so will see the real thing - so Neve can say she's been there too!!!

Round the back of the golden Stupa - shining in the sun

A picture of a tree with bizarre roots

The largest frieze with a picture in the World (I think?) 400m of painting depicting a picture of struggles of demons and kings

Demons and Monkeys around another gold stupa - protecting the thing inside

They were really sparkley!

More gold buildings

This is the giant white pig in the freize picture -apparetnly the Thai equivalent to Spiderman or Superman!

Here we all are annointing ourselves with holy water from the lotus flowers - Felix was rather hot, so perhaps took advantage of the nice cool water - he looked like he'd had a shower by the end!

Here is Felix counting all the 112 golden statues

Neve

Here's the mother of pearl inlay in one of the doors - really beautiful

Golden Stupa framed by mother-of-pearl inlaid doors

Ross Fighting with Dragons!

Felix likes to jump infront of pictures to spoil them - bit irritating, but at least we knew he was feeling better by now!

Here he is again jumping infront of another shot

Lots of elephants

This was the ceremonial old parliament building with the most amazing trees and immaculate lawns

These statues commemorated the influx of Chinese help - appartenly these two were given by the Chinese essentially as ballast to back-fill a trading boat back to Thailand from China

Here is the giant reclinging Buddha - he was cool!

Here are his giant feet

'Poo - this fish market stinks!'

Lots and lots and lots of dried fish!

The very steep steps of the temple of dawn - we could actually see Neve's knickers!

A bit hairy on the way down!

Here we are in the dried fish market - it was so smelly our clothes still smelt of it later on! It looked gross, much of it was powdered shrimp or dried fish. Most of the nothern Thia people can't get fresh fish, so they rely on this stuff. We thought we'd never eat this, until John informed us that this powdery stuff is one fot he key ingredients of most Thai curries (which are delish and which we've been eating for breakfast lunch and dinner for the past two days!)

Here we are having our feet nibbled - it was teh most bizarre feeling - tingly and slimy!

Here are Julie's feet (Ross doesn't wear nail-varnish) you can see them all nibbling up your legs - they even pop their heads over the water!)

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Bit out of sequence, but here's the 'emerald' Buddha in his winter coat - he was about 50cm tall but sat on a large golden plinth!

The finished result!

Neve getting her hair braided!

John, Felix and Neve in the market - this soupy stuff near Neve, made from Powdered fish and, I guess salt, is the basis for most Thai curries - NICE!

Ubiquitous Unilever!

The view from the Dawn temple looking over the river towards the Grand Palace

Near the reclining Buddha, there was a really pretty orchid in this tree

Pudding (BBQ'ed bananas)

Neve putting the pennies in each of the pots - you had to put one in at a time - a kind of meditation - it made a lovely noise! There were about 100 odd pots