Bangkok: First Full Day

We rolled out of bed at around 5:30AM wide awake and decided to kill a bit of time reading and then head out to see some of the major tourist attractions in Bangkok.

When we got to the Grand Palace, we found that it didn't open until 8:30.

There was plenty to do in the area, so we decided to spend some time in the nearby market. Every morning people give food to the monks who are all over the city. You will see one picture below in which a vendor setup specific ready-made plates to be given to the monks. As we walked around, a vendor offered us a taste of a fruit that we later found to be a mangostine. Very tasty.

From Thailand

We went to the Spirit Center of the city and watched as people made their donations of oil, food, flowers, and clothing for the Buddha statues housed there.

From Thailand

By now it was 8:30 and the Grand Palace was finally open. We went in and were blown away (as you can see from the pictures). An entire city block is taken up with amazingly decorated buildings palaces and wats (Buddhist temples). Here is a sample, click on it to see the rest of the amazing pictures that we took:

From Thailand

After the Grand Palace we headed over to Wat Pho, home of the Reclining Buddha. This was absolutely enormous filling the entire building. The best I could do for giving you some perspective was to compare my hand with it's toe:


To round out the day, we took a ferry across the river to Wat Arun, the temple of the dawn.


What a long day! We were asleep again by 8:30PM, but it was much easier to stay up than our first night.