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1 November
Bangkok - Temple Day
KIM: The Hawks will not be scammed again! Unfortunately this has resulted in us being rather rude to any thai person who approaches us in any attempt to be 'helpful'. We trust no-one… and with that mind set we made it safely in the non-tourist boat down the Chao Phraya River and onto our first temple of the day - Wat Pho which houses the enormous statue of a reclining Buddha. Forty five meters long and his giant feet are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. With a five meter wide smile - this Buddha is entering nirvana and is clearly quite pleased about it.
On our way back to the ferry pier we grabbed some 'street food' lunch - a pork sausage which tasted rather delicious but our stomachs soon discovered actually wasn't! We were also offered a massage which we were inclined to turn down as we're constantly offered massages along Khao San Road and always say no, but after a few hours around this temple, and considering it's also a university of traditional medicine and thai massage, we decided to accept this one. I think between the pork sausages and this acceptance - we made two grave mistakes. Personally, my hour long 'reflexology' massage was very little short of torture… and I do wonder if these masseuses's actually know what they are doing. Mark seemed to be enjoying his with his eyes blissfully closed. He later informed me he was one stroke short of kicking his masseuse in the face from pain!
We are nervous to try a foot massage again, however considering it's my favorite I have every intention of finding someone who knows what they're doing.
Onto Wat Arun - the Temple of Dawn… which actually is best viewed at sunset. We didn't see it at either of these, but were still blown away by it. This is quite clearly our favorite for the reason of all the stories and symbolism behind the building and architecture. Still knowing very little about Buddhism, this temple incorporates all sorts of other mythology into it including the God of Wind on a three headed elephant and half bird, half woman creatures. 19th century Chinese ships carried broken porcelain plates etc that was offloaded and used to decorate the central prang. Absolutely unique and striking!
Back to Khao San Road and exhausted… we showered and freshened up (as best you can in Bangkok humidity) and headed for Hualamphong station for our 10pm overnight sleeper train to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.
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