Bangkok Walking Tour

 

We picked a hostel that was located perfectly. so we could walk almost anywhere we wanted to go.

Cause God knows taking a taxi would take the whole day. Bangkok traffic is the emotional equivalent of straining paint through a spoon.

So on a nice shiny day, we packed our day bag and ventured into the city, with nothing but Amap and a translator. We marked down 5 sites to see.

Our first stop was the  Temple, right in the middle of the city. We had not counted on the number of tourists and the tuk-tuk drivers pedalling their services. Seriously every corner there was a dude trying to take us to the Big Buddha or the market or on an elephant ride, anything to make us spend money.

At Temple, we were speechless. It is this amazing structure that thrusts up out of the middle of the city with golden eaves and the iconic Thai temple roof in the shape of a lotus. We were pleasantly surprised to hear we could enter the temple for free. There was also the opportunity to see part of the remains of the past king (at a price).

Like all Buddhist temples, it had this atmosphere of peace and tranquillity, which is a difficult feat with hundreds of people walking around the structure.

After the temple, we walked around the city and found a park that was about a kilometre away. The park was nothing to call home about, but it did have a great craft brew bar on the banks of the river. So you could watch the ebb and flow of the river with a cold craft beer in hand. That was heaven for me. I absolutely love craft beer ( or any alcohol to be honest). If you choose you could even jump on the river cruise and see the sites on the river, we opted to keep walking and we are so glad we did.

Near the park was the National Gallery. The gallery had the former king's art on display. He was amazingly talented. There were some amazing pieces on display. It was here where we found a young artist, that we both decided had to be part of our future house. Her name is Jamilah Haji.

The gallery offered not only paintings, both ancient and modern but also musical compositions as well as videos by the winners of the Young Artist Awards recently held in Thailand.  was one of the winners

After the National Gallery, our next step was to go to the Royal Palace. Here we learnt that it was inauguration day for the new king. So there were huge crowds, to the point, there were separate entrances for foreigners and Thai people.

The security was not too bad. All we had to do, was show our passports at the entrance for their records.

The only way to describe the buildings is regal. They had the mandatory gold rooves and other trimmings. When you walk in you are hit in the face by the sheer enormity of the place. You have to take a moment to take it all in. Everything from the golden rooves to the huge doors to the amount of care that is taken in maintaining these buildings.

Sadly it was too busy and the lines were too long for us to see the proceedings. At this point, it was getting late and the line still snaked for at least a kilometre, and there were still people sitting in the waiting area.

We walked around and visited the temples around, but were told we couldn’t enter one of the temples because we were showing too much flesh. Disheartening, but now we know to wear pants and long sleeves next time. We also got to watch the comedy of a Thai security guard trying to explain to an old Chinese woman why she couldn’t go into the temple with her skirt.

At this point, we were too tired to take in another site. And to be quite honest after seeing that many temples, we had had our fill of temples and other places of worship.

The next day we were off to another part of town anyway, we needed the break from tourists a little.