More in Bangkok: Wat Pho & the Grand Palace

Bangkok, Thailand

Today was our first and only full day in Bangkok. Naturally it started out with buffet bacon. At some point this will have to end; I don’t know when. But we are leaning toward cutting back to where we might not have chicken curry for breakfast. Promise.

Have we mentioned that this is the tropics… and the papaya, pineapple, watermelon and dragon fruit (???) are fabulous? Wow. Papaya every meal. This is too much to believe!

Ok, where was I?

If you look up “Bangkok attractions” in TripAdvisor, about 3 of the top 20 attractions are “Health Clubs”. We have not figured that out, since it is not on our itinerary. Instead, we will visit temples.

Actually, the main attractions in Bangkok are not so much ancient temples, as was the case in Cambodia, but rather historic Thai buildings, mostly in the colorful, classic Asian style, with steep roofs and ornate rafters. Bangkok has some absolutely amazing buildings. In terms of complexity and size, something like Buckingham Palace or the Kremlin, but in bright colors.

It happens that today was Chinese New Year, and you guessed it, the Grand Palace was incredibly crowded with Chinese tourists, and I mean the ones from China. The majority of tourists in the Asian countries we will visit are from China. Therefore, you see a lot of iPhone selfie holder poles.

The first stop is Wat Pho. You should have learned by now that “Wat” means “Temple”. “Pho” means, well I don’t know what Pho means, but the main attraction is the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. Wat Pho’s official name is Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimon Mangkhlaram Ratchaworamahawihan, but let’s just go with “Wat Pho”.

This is the home of the incredibly famous Reclining Buddha, plus more than 100 temples and other buildings of various sorts, and more than 1,000 Buddha statues and images. Actually, they just call them “images”. And beautiful stupas too. A stupa is a mound or tall structure used to house Buddhist relics and/or remains of ord

The Reclining Buddha is a statue of Buddha lying down, a type of statue that appears in numerous other places. This one, however, is 50 feet high and about 150 feet long, the largest. After it was created in the late 18^th century, it was decided to create a protective building around it, and that is what we see today.

Wat Pho is the also birthplace of traditional Thai massage and in 1962 a traditional medicine and massage school was established here. Why is it here, you ask? Well, because all of the education was (and sometimes is still) done in temples by monks. One small temple is completely covered with illustrations of pressure points and instructions about massage. And that’s how they learned… by coming to this temple and studying the walls!

Second up today was the Grand Palace, home of the “incredible” Emerald Buddha, a 30-inch tall Buddha statue at the top of an altar-type structure maybe 30 feet tall in (excuse me) the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. This is a fantastic building where hundreds of people are filing through, kneeling on the carpet in front of the altar, holding their hands to their foreheads in a lotus prayer position, bowing to the Buddha. This is an impressive sight, no matter how you look at it.

But the Grand Palace is the former residence of the kings of Siam (Thailand) and contains buildings and temples built hundreds of years ago, many covered with ornate ceramic decorations in COLOR, COLOR, COLOR! The pictures here don’t show you the splendor – because there is glass embedded too, and mirrors that reflect the light and gold leaf everywhere. It’s magnificent!

We took a 3-minute ferry across the Chao Phraya Rver to the Supatra River House restaurant for another fixed meal of fabulous fried bass, sweet and sour pork, spicy sautéed vegetables, and, of course, mixed fruit with papaya. We have to cut back, but I don’t know when that is going to start.

Taking the ferry back across the river, we were bused to the supposedly famous and important Prasart Museum. Mr. Prasart apparently made millions investing in property and condos over the past 30 years, and wanted to preserve SE Asian antiquities and art relics for posterity. He built a fantastic garden, with many architecturally significant Thai and Chinese buildings, sort of manufacturing a museum. We were not able to exactly figure out what was going on there. The guide seemed to be on uppers and had a very heavy accent. We will leave the final judgment to later. We have not been able to find any significant reviews of the place.

Tomorrow we go on a “longboat” tour of the canals here, which are similar to Venice. This should be something really special. Then we get on the cruise ship Aegean Odyssey in the afternoon, for a well-earned rest. Although we’ll be doing ‘things’, we may not have the internet connection to post them. But it will all happen in good time. Stay tuned.