Bangkok: Mar 16: The Grand Palace and Various Temples

We spent Tuesday seeing the highlights of the royal and religious aspects of Bangkok. It was a busy day, or at least as busy as one can be in heat that necessitates breathers and a mid-day rest.

I took a ton of pictures this day (over a hundred!). Di Yin took even more. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #91). When you see a picture of me nodding off in a ferry at night, wiped out from the day, (picture #278) you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

After snacking a bit for breakfast in our hotel room, the four of us took the hotel ferry to the main ferry pier, and then the tourist boat ferry (complete with narration) to the pier nearest the Grand Palace.

The Grand Palace is opulent, pretty (look at all my pictures!), and interesting with its unusual blend of architectural styles.

Also in the complex, we visited Wat Phra Kaew (the Temple of the Emerald Buddha), the most sacred Buddhist temple in Thailand. It also has a lot of attractive buildings. Oddly, in the main temple building, all of us somehow missed seeing the Emerald Buddha itself. It turns out the Emerald Buddha (which is made of jade, not emerald) is tiny--less than three feet tall! No wonder we missed it in a temple with so many larger religious statues.

We also visited the Emerald Buddha Museum (elsewhere in the Grand Palace), which covers the history of the Emerald Buddha and displays many pretty offerings people have made to it over the years (mostly little statues). The Emerald Buddha has been fought over between Thailand and Laos. I also learned the Emerald Buddha has different outfits; the King of Thailand changes its robes at the beginning of each of Bangkok's three seasons: summer, winter, and rainy. The final feature of the museum worth mentioning is the models of the Grand Palace and of Wat Phra Kaew. The museum has models of the area in the late 18th century and others of it in the modern day, allowing one to visually see how the area has changed and grown.

We also walked through the Weapons Museum (also in the complex). It contains a variety of weapons: swords, spikes, spears, pikes, tridents, hooks, lances, knives, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, percussion guns, flintlock guns, and more.

Finally, we explored the Museum of Regalia, Royal Decoration, and Coins. It contains an unusual assortment of items: betel nut trays, water pitchers, kettles, spittoons, and lip wax boxes. There are also royal swords, royal accessories, medals, etc. Finally, it displays Thai money and how it's changed over time.

After all this, Di Yin's parents headed back to hotel to hide from the heat.

Di Yin and I, meanwhile, ate lunch and continued exploring. In addition to street markets, we stopped by another famous temple: Wat Pho (the Temple of the Reclining Buddha). It's another photogenic temple, partially due to the incomprehensible number of towers (a.k.a. chedis or stupas). (Actually, according to one guide book, there are 91 chedis, but why it has so many is incomprehensible to me.) Thus, it would've been well worth the visit even if it didn't have one of the largest (if not the largest) reclining buddha in the world.

At this point, Di Yin was exhausted from the heat and so we retreated (via the series of boats) back to our hotel.

In the evening, we ventured out again, this time to the Suam Lum Night Bazaar/Market. As with everywhere else we went today, the captions by the pictures document the experience rather well. I have nothing to add here.