A really important day for us today... BANGKOK!! Yessssss!
We were picked up from our hotel at 07:10 this morning. Our guide was absolutely fascinating today. As we drove through Petchaburi he pointed out the many colourful flags and asked us if we knew what they were for... Obviously we didn't. They were for the Thai Royal Family. Each member of the royal family has their own colour! Yellow for the King, blue for the Queen. The Crown Prince is also yellow (the centre of the flag is different on his flag to tell it apart from the King's), the Princesses are purple and orange. These colours are specific to each member of the royal family, not the role. You see, the days of the week have their own colour too. So the royal family's colours are chosen according to what day they were born! He told us what our colours were, Simon and I are both Friday babies so we're both blue! The flags flying at the moment are mainly blue for the queen as it was her birthday this week.
Not only do the days of the week have their own colour (which I absolutely love by the way!), there is also a different Buddha for every day of the week. Our Buddha (Friday) is the Buddha of contemplation (Pang Ram Pueng).
Bangkok translates in English to mean Town of Olives (Bang-town/village, kok-olives). It's current Thai name, 'Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit' (or Krung Thep for short), is the longest name for any capital city in the world. The short name translates as The City of Angels. The whole name tells the story of Bangkok.
There are 400 temples in Bangkok alone, but today we only visited 3. We arrived at our first stop at around 09:30-45.
The first temple we visited was Wat Pho. Wat means temple in Thai and Pho is a spiritual tree. It is called the temple of the reclining Buddha in England. Wat Pho is the oldest temple in Bangkok, older than bangkok itself.
We walked into the temple grounds to be greeted by the most spectacular structures I think I have ever seen. I was completely blown away and started sweating from my eyeballs.
Every corner we turned, another gasp escaped from my mouth.
We walked through the hall containing the reclining Buddha. I will let the photos speak for me when we get home on that one!
In the centre of the temple grounds stands the ordination hall. In most temples these are closed off to the public but at Wat Pho it is open. We removed our shoes and burned our feet on the hot stone floor. The monks were chanting as we stepped over the threshold (standing on the threshold is forbidden) and entered the ordination hall. We sat on the floor, our legs tucked behind us so as to not point the soles of our feet at anybody (most insulting) and let the chanting wash over us. Very moving. Our guide came over and quietly told me that the two young men at the front had just become monks this morning. We were watching their ordination into monk hood ceremony. They will have studied for months and will now live their lives by the 227 rules of Buddhism and eat only two meals a day for the rest of their lives. No food after 12:00. No midnight snacks!
Next we hopped back on the transfer bus to The Grand Palace containing Wat Phra Kaew.
Although we had brought long trousers with us, it has been far too hot to even contemplate wearing anything longer than shorts and Bangkok is even hotter than Hua Hin. So we wore shorts and packed a scarf for me to tie around my waist, Simon hired some awesome cotton, elephant print harem pants from a stall outside for 30baht (57p).
By this time it was getting hot, REALLY hot. No sea breeze like we've been used to! The Grand Palace was incredible and incredibly busy! The Wat was home to the Emerald Buddha, although it's made from jade not emerald. It's called the emerald Buddha because of the colour not the material. There were no photos allowed in here. Before we went in we picked a long stemmed lotus flower from a small brass bowl and dipped it into a large bowl of holy water. You then sprinkle the holy water onto your head, from the petals of the lotus flower, for luck and good fortune. Beautiful.
The emerald Buddha was only small (66cm high) but considering it was solid jade, it was impressive.
The grand palace itself was a mixture of English colonial style and thai style... It looked a bit like a white London building with a Thai roof on it!
We walked through a street market to a pier to catch our boat along the Chao Praya river and it was chaos! The entire pier was moving constantly. A few boats turned up, they looked wonderfully sturdy and very appealing. When we asked if this was our boat, our guide said 'no, we are waiting for one like this' and pointed to a decrepit, beat up narrow boat that was cms from the surface of the river! At first I thought he was joking and asked 'really?!' He said yes and at the same time I remembered that sarcasm is English, not thai!
Our boat arrived and Simon and I ended up sitting at the front. Holy s*** did I wish we weren't at the front!! There's no speed limit on the Chao Praya so it was CRAZY choppy and at a few points I was convinced that I had literally soiled myself in some manner (I hadn't!). After what seemed like forever, as the tiny, fragile looking, wooden boat smacked up and down on to the surface of the river, we turned onto one of the Khlongs (narrow canals). WOW! Typical Thai life, right there in front of us. Again, I really want the pictures to speak for themselves when we get home. As we're going along, our guide shouted 'Si-moon, LOOK!' And pointed to our left. Walking along the side of the khlong was a 4ft monitor lizard! In the bloody centre of Bangkok! A monitor lizard!!! Tongue flicking, tail swishing, claws dragging. Mental!
After some time, our boat (if it qualified for the name ; ) !) pulled up to another pier with a MASSIVE step up to it. We were at our restaurant for a buffet lunch. We sat with a Dutch couple Beau and Dex who are from our hotel. A lovely, young pair of boys. It made for a pleasant lunch.
After we drove to our final Wat of the day, Wat Trimit. A new temple of only four years old and home of the world's largest solid gold Buddha weighing 5.5 tonnes. The ground was ridiculously hot by this point, even the white marble was scorching! So taking our shoes off to enter the temple was incredibly painful this time!
Our final stop of the day was the MK centre... A seven floor shopping centre! We were only there for two hours and we barely scratched the surface. There were three floors of market stalls where we could haggle on prices... Simon was brilliant and was making them laugh. He managed to get everyone down on the marked prices though! We bought quite a bit here!
We finished off with stop at Mr Donut (a bit like a costa but doughnuts are the main event) where the donuts were around only 27p each(!), before heading home.
Another jam packed day tomorrow with another early rise, so we've had a room service dinner tonight and are now tucked up in bed.
I've asked Simon to add a few words but he said no. I have interviewed him instead;
It was extremely hot, a lovely day seeing lots of very interesting things. The sights were worth every penny. The reclining Buddha was fantastic. His favourite bits were the trip on the river and seeing Wat Pho.
A man of many words today! Haha!
More from us tomorrow. Lots of love. xxx