A Palace and 2 Temples

Yesterday was out last day in Thailand. We decided to sightsee Bangkok, again with as much local transport as possible, partly for our own ease of movement on our own timescales, partly as they bump up the prices about 300% for "Farangs" (tourists). The Chao Phraya river (the equivalent of the Thames through the city centre) has multiple ferries running north to south, and is a really popular way to move about but if you get the blue tourist flag boats the you can expect to pay 40 baht, if you get the orange flag local boats, it's a but of a standing room only game but it's 15baht to go any number of stops. We got a couple more tuktuks, as the kids thought they were fun, though a bit more toxic in Bangkok, and we got boats the rest of the time to hop on and off of.

We want to Wat Pho first, this stunningly detailed temple, supposedly the most sacred site in Thailand. It is home to the Reclining Buddha, a whacking great big beast of a gold statue...I knew it was going to be big but it did blow us away how colossal it was. Even his toes made the Day family toes seem miniature ;-)

A load of taxi drivers and others tried to scam us on multiple occasions, telling us the temple/palace were closed for lunch/til 10am and they could, very conveniently, take us to great uncle Bill's temple on the other side if Bangkok, in their taxi of course, and on the way we could go to great aunty Sue's for lunch for only 2000 baht yada yada...luckily we had read about this on forums before so knew to ignore them and go straight it...and astonishingly the temples were all open...shocker!!

The grand palace

We went to the Grand Palace next, only about 10 minute walk away. We'd brought long sleeves/trousers
and closed shoes and duly changed into them, but walking in the gates was just the most claustrophobic feeling...the enormous grounds were just shoulder to shoulder with visitors. I don't know if that's the norm or because it's the King's birthday on Thursday and the whole of Thailand want to celebrate it for him in Bangkok (there are literlally banners and decorations everywhere and everyone is wearing yellow as his patriotic colour).

We walked along one length of the square, losing each other frequently, then got to the paying section, at 500 baht each, we decided we probably weren't going to see £50 worth of the palace and took a few pics from a distance and went and got more street food instead!!

Wat Arun temple

Wat Arum was on the opposite side if the river, it was hugely ornate aswell as massive. It also had the big advantage that you could walk up half of it, crazy steep stairs but great view I'm sure...me , Liss and Adam only got to the first level before bottling out. J and Frey managed the top. After this we returned to the homestay to get our bags and then off to the airport :)