........ than your Palace" , said the King of Siam to the King of England!!
I have visited and been very impressed by a number of things - the Taj Mahal in Agra, Versailles in France, the Forbidden City in Beijing , and others --- but today we visited the Grand Palace in Bangkok. I had seen
pictures of it and was looking forward to seeing it - thinking that it would be very nice as it's pictures showed it to be. But I was "BLOWN AWAY!!!". I have attached some photos - but it is "un-photoable" - not able to be photographed, if photography is meant to show people what it looks like. No amount of individual photos could clearly illustrate the grandness, the size, the magnificence of it! It is actually not that ancient - built from around the late part of the 18th Century - but what it lacks in that respect, it more than makes up elsewhere.
Our day visiting Bangkok did not start all that well - it has been hotter on this trip than we expected or would have liked - 34C and VERY high humidity was forecast for Bangkok, which I thought was a bit strange because although we are close to the Equator, we are on the Winter side of it and we had thought that it would have toned the temperature down a little. There were 50 large Motor Coaches waiting to take us into Bangkok when we berthed at 7AM. The 99 klm road up the highway from the port for Bangkok (Laem Chabang) was much superior to that in Vietnam - but actually not as interesting. The entry into the outskirts of Bangkok revealed a very modern city with many huge "flyovers" - and nothing scenic at all. Our first stop was at the Temple of the famous "Golden Buddha". This was quite interesting as we had never seen 5 tons of pure gold in one place before - much less as a wonderful statue/work of art in a huge Temple. But it was very busy (Is it tourist season now??) and the temperature and humidity had increased to ridiculous levels. This was all very interesting - but Bangkok itself was not looking all that appealing.
Then we arrived at the Grand Palace - well actually we arrived at a place to see the famous "Emerald" Buddha, which is essentially the most important religious place in Thailand - and discovered that the Buddha was to be ceremonially dressed for winter by the Crown Prince of Thailand later in the day. This was an amazing complex - and I came to understand that we were actually inside the Grand Palace. After about an hour of looking around and trying to photograph, we came to realize that we had not even entered the Grand Palace yet - that was to come!!
These cruise ship shore tours leave a bit to be desired for a number of reasons, one of which is because you don't get much time for sightseeing - the trip into Bangkok from the port was 60 minutes and another 90 to return. But in spite of that, and in spite of the heat/humidity, this was a marvelous day - and we think that we would definitely like to come back to Thailand (but in cooler weather if possible, and in a less touristy time if possible). From the fleeting glimpses we had of the river and Chinatown, there is obviously a lot to do here - tomorrow we go to a beach resort island of Ko Samui, which is another side to the Thailand experience.
By the way, we had another great lunch in a 5 Star hotel - but we are discovering that these hotels and the ship itself is catering to a "non spicy, bland western taste". Here we are in Bangkok, and we had no Thai food at all - only western food (very nice western food, but not what we were looking forward to. Even the so-called "famous" P&O UK curries onboard are proving to be a disappointment.
You can view a Youtube video about our visit to Bangkok here
No comments:
Post a Comment