Monday, December 17, 2012

Bangkok - Sight Seeing!

The next day, we went down to the water ferry to go to see a few of the famous Bangkok sights! The ferry is funny because you are crammed on there with lots of other people and then you travel down the river to various stops in the city. Traveling alongside you in the river are these river taxis that are long, slender boats that have a giant engine in them - very iconic Thailand.


We went out onto the front of the boat to take pictures and saw the Temple of Dawn which was really cool!

As we got off the boat on our way to Wat Pho (the Reclining Buddha), we passed several street vendors selling freshly squeezed juices and fruits. We got some fresh pomegranate juice and some fresh pineapple which were both delicious! We walked to Wat Pho, got our tickets and went to see the world famous Reclining Buddha. I don't even know how to describe what I thought when I was there but something about it felt magical. It was so impressive - the big, gold statue was just so cool.
The feet were engraved with mother of pearl, too which was beautiful.

Afterwards, we walked over to The Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha. As we were walking in, they told us that we would not be able to go in if we were showing our knees. They had sarongs and pants for rent so Ryan and I rented a pair so we could go into the temples. These snazzy additions to our outfits certainly added to our pictures (see what I mean in the pic below?).


On our way back to the ferry, we passed some stalls selling food. I passed an older woman selling mango and sticky rice which is my absolute favorite! It was 50 Baht (about $1.60) and it was as fresh as it gets. She peeled the mango in front of me, pulled out some sticky rice, covered it coconut sauce and nuts and put it in a to go container. It was hands down the BEST mango and sticky rice I had ever had!
In the afternoon, we headed to the Chatauchack Weekend Market; it was about an hour away on the Sky Train which was a pretty awesome public transport system - complete with air conditioning which was very refreshing as Thailand is super hot and humid! The market is absolutely gigantic - it's over 35 acres and it has anything you could possibly want. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around and found a few souvenirs that we liked. The best part of our afternoon was meeting up with Ryan's friend, May. She is from Thailand and had worked with Ryan in Houston. We had the best luck because she was going home to see her family during the same time that we were there, so she met us at the market and then took us to her favorite restaurant. It was great to see her and to eat such delicious, authentic Thai food!! :)

The next day, we took it easy and walked around the city a bit and went to a great restaurant for dinner. It was called the Blue Elephant and the food was delicious!

Early the next morning, we headed up to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand...

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