Bangkok Day 3

I had one of those nights where sleep didn't come easily. In fact both of us were groggy in the morning and we sat around Shanti Lodge since we were in no rush to get anywhere. We have two full days here allowing us to take our time without rushing off to see everything at once.

I was able to upload all the photos I've taken to the picas web site. It was an all or nothing move so there are a lot unnecessary of pics pushed to the page, but at least there is something to look at and I don't have all my eggs in one basket in case I have equipment failure. They are viewable at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/XillaMonster

The day was pleasantly overcast and we took advantage of the cooler day to walk around and visit the other major sites in the city. We have gotten good at navigating the area and in half an hour we made it to the Grand Palace or "Wat Phra Kaeo" where the famous emerald Buddha resides. Similar to the other temples here, the grand palace is over the top fancy shining will gold and mosaic buildings made up of little colored mirrors. Our favorite part of the place was the ten foot high mural depicting the history of Rama that runs around the parameter of the place. The highly detailed images of evil monkey god wars, flying magical elephants, and concubines serving the royalty was intriguing. We entertained ourselves making up our own translations of the story. I bet we were way off.

Three bhat got us a quick ferry ride across the Chao Phraya River, the main water artery of Bangkok, to visit Wat Arun, one of the Hindi temples. We were able to hike up the seep stairs and get of good overlook of the river and city.

The rivers and canals were one the main highway and street of the city long before the automobiles showed up and they are still heavily use to shuttle people and goods throughout the area. We hopped on the express river boat with the locals and found that it was the cheapest and most efficient way to move through the city.

Our relaxing evening at the lodge turned up a small tragedy. Apparently, a poorly placed Kindle, our electronic book, was not mean to be sat on. Although it still works, the screen only displays the bottom third making it virtually in operable and completely useless to us for the rest of the trip. It's not the end of the world, but the end of a minor luxury. It was also our main use for contact when we were not parked at a wireless outpost. Let's hope I can keep the iPad safer.

From 2011-01-11 xillas

Location:Bangkok Thailand