Gold and More Gold, Massage and Great Dinner

We left Siem Reip (Angkor Wat) in the morning and flew to Bangkok. We quickly checked into the hotel and departed for the city at noon. We are staying at the new Bangkok Airport about 40 minutes from Bangkok by Taxi. We planned a busy day and it turned out to be very full.

We went first to the Grand Palace. This is a site to be seen. This is where the King of Thailand lived until the 1950’s when they built a new palace. It was never previously open to the public. It is a large number of buildings and temples. The operative word is gold! Everything seems to be covered in gold. They must really have been rich! We hired a guide to take us through the highlights. Until we came to Indo-China we never appreciated the importance of the Emerald Buddha The Buddha statue is small about a yard high carved from one piece of jade. Many wars have been fought over the ownership of it and it has moved from India, to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. It is the most holy relic to all of these people and it is located at the Grand Palace.

From there we took a Tuk-Tuk to Wat Po where our minds were blown by the reclining Buddha. This Buddha is over 150 feet long in a reclining position (supposedly how the Buddha died) and entirely covered in Gold. It is colossal.

From there we taxied through Bangkok rush hour winding up at Celadon, the highest rated Thai restaurant in Bangkok. It is located at Sukhothai Hotel, a very beautiful place. We timed it to arrive 2 hours early and checked into the SPA for a 90 minute massage each (our last in Thailand, alas) had a drink, then met a friend from the tour for a great dinner, featuring among other things shrimp the size of pork chops! A great finish for our trip. We taxied back to the airport hotel and leave tomorrow for Singapore and home.