I started out nice and early on Saturday. I wanted to see the Grand Palace and some temples, and luckily they were all in the same direction. I flagged down a taxi outside my hotel and told the guy to take me to the Grand Palace. You'd think that would be easy, right? I mean, I'd assume every Thai knows where that is, unless I'm overestimating it's importance.
Luckily, I got there in one piece, though for a second I did think the guy was going to take me to one of the temples on the other side of the river, though when he pointed to it on my map, I vehemently said no, and kept pointing to the big picture of the Grand Palace. A little detour through Chinatown, and we were there in about 30 minutes, and all for about 3 bucks.
I'll admit, I did get a little brochure about the Grand Palace, but I didn't read it. All I know is that it's a huge place, with lots of temples and most importantly, I believe, the Emerald Buddha. Sadly, no pictures of him, as he is inside one of the temples and it's a holy place, so no shoes, no hats, no cameras. There were a lot of people sitting down, praying, making offerings, so I just quietly walked though. While I did see the Buddha, I didn't actually realize it was the Emerald Buddha until afterward.
There seemed to be a few different styles of design among the temples. We've got the one big shiny gold temple, we've got glass mosaic ones, and we've got ceramic mosaic ones. For the ceramic ones, they actually took new bowls and broke them to use the pieces in the designs. I think the ceramic ones were my favorite design.
Some of the shiny stuff you'd think would be kind of gaudy, but it's not really. Like I said, I didn't read the brochure, so I'm not sure how old some of the temples are. They were actually working on some of them, fixing or re-tiling, throughout the day at both places. Amongst all the shiny stuff, there were also a lot of gargoyles-type statues. I think they're supposed to be demons.
After I finished seeing everything at the Grand Palace (and had an ice cream!), I headed over to Wat Po, which was pretty much next door. I had an interesting encounter with some guy on the way, who tried to tell me that Wat Po was closed until 1:00 to foreigners because it was a holy day. He told me I should go see some other temples, and for 20 baht, his buddy with his tuktuk would take me.
Now, I'd read about these guys, so I knew he was full of it. And there was certainly no way I was getting in a tuktuk, which is a little three wheel motorized contraption. I'm sure no matter where I'd ask him to take me, it would involve some sort of scam at some point. So I walked up the block, crossed the street and came back down on the other side, and what do you know, Wat Po was open! I felt like going back to the guy afterward and asking him if lying was bad karma.
Wat Po is another temple (or wat), and a lot of it was very similar to the temples at the Grand Palace. What makes Wat Po famous though, is the Reclining Buddha. The Reclining Buddha is huge, and has a pretty big temple all to itself.
After I finished up at Wat Po, it wasn't even 1:00! I was also very hot and sweaty - it was in the 90s, at least, and I had on pants since I was going to be going in to the temples (if I had worn shorts, I would have been required to buy a nice long skirt before going in). I grabbed a cab and headed to a mall on the way back to my hotel for lunch. Then it was home, and time for a shower!
The good thing about Saturday though, was learning that my new camera takes pretty good pictures! It was incredibly sunny all day, and sometimes I was shooting right in to the light. Most of these came out gorgeous, if I don't say so myself! You can see more at my flickr page.
Those are amazing photos! Glad you're having such an interesting trip.
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