Exploring Bangkok

Today we played tourists in Bangkok. We left Sasa early and were out allll day, seeing the sights. Rather than ramble too much, I'll use this space to show some of the better pictures we took today.

First, we went to the Grand Palace which is in the historic part of the city. It was 60 acres of incredibly ornate temples, shrines, and royalty buildings. Many of which were covered in gold, colored mirror, or pieces of Chinese porcelain. Was truly incredible.

A roof of one of the buildings in the Grand Palace

Stone guy, and incredibly ornate temple building in the background

Close-up of some of the decorations of the building

More Grand palace architecture

Jen and I being palace guards... or decorative ladies... or whatever these are

The palace tour was exhausting... crowded, about 90 degrees outside, and very humid. So after that we stopped for lunch for awhile in an air-conditioned spot. We all got a bit more adventurous in our eating today... Matt and Jen ate a slushy made with ice, and I ate an entire green salad... these are all things we wouldn't have eaten a week ago for fear of getting sick from the water. So we are anxiously waiting to see if we will regret this decision in about 6-12 hours...

Anyways, back to the cultural stuff. After the Grand palace, we saw the "reclining Buddha", a GIGANTIC statue of a laying down Buddha, completely covered in gold and housed in a large, incredibly ornate temple.

Matt and I mimicking the reclining buddha in the background... sorta

Long shot of the buddha

Next we headed on a water taxi across the river to the "temple of the dawn", or Wat Arun. We climbed to the top to get some great views of Bangkok. Then, it was back across the river to hang out and get dinner at a restaurant right on the river, right across from Wat Arun. We stayed there through sunset, and got some incredible pictures of the temple lit up at night.

Wat Arun, with water taxis out front

Dinner at a restaurant across from the Temple during sunset

The Wat Arun temple at night

Walking back home after dinner we walked through the Bangkok flower market. This consists of blocks and blocks of flower vendors, selling fresh flowers 24 hours a day. They are incredibly beautiful, with so much variety, so fresh and local.

Flowers purchased by someone special! 

Overall a pretty awesome but exhausting day.