Driving Miss Karen

A blog about our travel

Bangkok Thailand Quick Stop

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To break up the flight and do laundry, we made a stop in Bangkok on our way to Taiwan and then Japan. We were so glad we did! So far Thailand is our favorite destination in Asia and we really haven’t explored the country having only spent 3 nights in Bangkok. What a really nice surprise. We can’t wait to return in November for a longer visit

Guardians holding up a golden temple. This is a summary of Thailand to me. Colorful, beautiful, and helpful
The temples are so so ornate but I like them
The steps were steep but they let you hang on to the statues
Many sights are clustered near the river in central Bangkok.
We had a busy full day tour in Bangkok which included lots of temples. They were all beautiful and temple fatigue hasn’t set in like with the European churches yet

Our first temple was the huge reclining buddha. It is made of bronze and is very very large
There is a Buddha pose for every day of the week. This is Saturday’s bad-ass pose when I thought I was born (but is was really Monday so no Buddha for me). Actually the Monday Buddha pose is called “Pacifying the Relatives”. Very appropriate!
The temples also have guardians like this bird lady
The Grand Palace is a mixture of a European façade and a Thai roof. It was built in the late 1700s and was lived in until 1925
There are lots of Golden Temples in Thailand. This one is on the Grand Palace grounds. There is a jade Buddha in the temple but it was tiny and hard to see
Our next stop was the Grand Palace area which had the palace and a temple. The palace is not lived in any more but is still used for ceremonies
We hired a longtail boat which is a wooden boat with a car engine mounted in the back. I’ll get some better pictures in Krabi Beach where we will be riding many
They’ve built locks to protect the canals from rising river levels but even so the homes are slowly sliding into the river. With typical Thai practicality, the homes are replaced with modern ones on concrete pilings so there is a hodgepodge of new and old.
After the Grand Palace and lunch at a far too fancy Thai restaurant (there was a singer and pianist) we visited the original part of the city around the canals
We saw some big monitor lizards on the banks
and even bigger Buddha statues
We finished up at the Golden Mount. A temple on big rock with good views of the city
Our tour guide Yuut was efficient, friendly, and knowledgeable
The end of a nice day filled with sightseeing
Bangkok Thailand. Nicest subway station I have been in
They have a king and queen with no power like the UK
Thailand respects it’s robot overlords!
Why do I like Thailand? Because it is clean and friendly and the food is really good. Things work like the subway, ATMs, taxis, credit cards. Finally it is cheap like me!

Jose

AKA Alfred

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