Achal and I decided to wake up early and go check out the pool in the morning before breakfast. I came down, still dead tired, but it was worth it. The pool was open air, and from the lounge chairs we could see the skyline of Bangkok…an amazing view. It was a pretty sweet pool. I sat in a chair for a while, watching the sky brighten as sunrise approached, then went back up to the room to pack away all my stuff. It took longer than expected, so I was late to breakfast. I quickly wolfed down some food, not nearly enough (it was sooo good), and headed down to the lobby to board the bus.
Our first stop for the day was Wat Po, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. The temple complex was so beautiful, and we got 15 minutes to walk around and take pictures. The architecture was so unique and beautiful…only a picture can describe it. After touring the complex, we entered the temple. Marina told us the statue of the reclining Buddha was very, very large, and then we walked in. I was blown away…the statue was HUGE! Way larger than I had expected…it was about 50 feet tall and 150 feet long. Even the pictures I took don't do it justice. After staring at the statue in awe for several minutes, we exited, grabbed our shoes, and headed back to the bus.
Our next stop was the Grand Palace of Bangkok, which we had seen from our boat cruise earlier. It was supposed to be the highlight of the city. As we entered the palace, I felt like I had been transported through a portal into another world. There were buildings everywhere with the Thai architecture; some were covered by golden domes and there were vast gardens and roads that led to a million places. It was a vast palace complex, and it was a visual explosion. I didn't know where to look first. Right as we were about to start our tour we got to see the changing of the guards. One troop of guards dressed in white, with automatic rifles in hand, marched out of the temple as another troop took their place. Afterwards, we began our tour. We walked through the main plaza area, and it was just spectacular. I was surrounded on all sides by exquisite buildings, and I couldn't take enough photos. We got a brief history of the palace from Marina, and then we got 15 minutes to shoot pictures. I ran around with Achal to as many places as we could, taking lots of pics along the way. We even saw a small model of Angkor Wat, the temple we were going to see in a few days. The model itself was pretty amazing, and both of us got really excited cuz we were going to see the real thing soon. :) After the photo-op was done, we met up with the group again, and headed to see the Jade (or Emerald) Buddha. No photography was allowed inside, so I took a lot of pics from the outside through a window. The Jade Buddha was a lot smaller than I expected (about 3-4 feet tall), but it was still pretty cool. The room which it was housed in was very ornate and exquisitely decorated.
After seeing the Jade Buddha, we headed out of the Grand Palace and boarded the bus. We headed back to the pier and took a ferry to a nearby restaurant across the river. The food was SO GOOD! For vegetarians, they made us fresh spring rolls, and for lunch we got 5 different spicy curries, including some green curry. SO GOOD! After lunch, our trip was heading back to the ship, 2 ½ hours away, but we were going to stay in Bangkok one more night to meet up with some friends. So, we waved goodbye to our group and to Marina, and left. We had lots of time to kill before we met up with some friends for dinner at 7. So, we decided to head to the local mall. It wasn't too far, and we got an amazing cab driver. He told us lots of funny stories, and showed us currency from around the world that some of his clients had given him. He had currency from countries like Iran, Iraq, and Dubai as well as countless others, including the ever-inflating Zimbabwean dollar. After a great ride there, we got off and went to check out the mall. It was very, very large, and we walked around for 10 minutes before deciding to go to the top floor where the theater was located. It had been a long time since we had seen an English movie in a theater, so we went to check out the showtimes. They were showing Watchmen at 4, so we decided to watch it…we got tickets for the VIP theater, and I didn't really know what that meant. We had some times before our show, so we found an internet café in the mall and surfed the web for a while.
The VIP theater was very cool. We showed our ticket at the entrance and got a complimentary drink…some fruit punch. It was actually very good. Afterwards we entered the theater. The seats were small sofas that reclined all the way back! They were very comfortable. Before the movie started there was a short video about the King, and we all had to stand up to show our respects…it was very interesting. There were some trailers for English movies, and I felt like I was home again. The movie was very long, but very interesting and thought-provoking. There was a lot of symbolism throughout the movie. As I left the movie theater, I was transported back to Bangkok cuz I had been home for a while while watching the movie and it was very nice and relaxing. By now it was 6:50 and we were getting late for our dinner meeting. We hopped into a cab and told the driver to take us to Khao San Road….the backpacker's street of Bangkok.
We got to our meeting point, and ran into Z and Whitney. After looking around for a few minutes, we found the rest of our group (Sarah, Rachel, Ji, and Jane). We ate at a local restaurant (May Kaidee's vegetarian restaurant) and the food was delicious. For once, Achal and I didn't have to worry about finding vegetarian food since everything on the menu was vegetarian. It was very nice :) After our dinner, we headed to our hostel and checked in. Afterwards, we decided to go out to the market. I bought lots of souvenirs again, and the rest of the group wanted to stay out a little late, maybe go to a few bars and hang out. I was tired, and I wanted to come back so I walked back with Ji.
There was an internet café in the hostel, so I sat on the internet for a while, talked to a couple friends online, uploaded some pictures and surfed the web. It was very relaxing. I went to bed soon after, exhausted after 3 days of intense traveling.
No comments:
Post a Comment