Sat 28 – Bangkok – Temples

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BronwenWeeGo.jpgSo we get up pretty early cause at 7am it feels like 10am and pack up our stuff ready to stash our bags for the day.  Go to put my Bangkok Lonely Planet in my shoulder bag and can’t find it.  We quickly discover that John has left it in the seat pocket of the plane.

It was our tour guide..with dog-eared pages and blue highligthing..and now it was gone .  Luckily i’d written the names of the places I was interested in in our itinery.

So grabbed a cab to the Grand Palace, got our tickets and in we went.  It’s a pretty cool place.  Lots of temples but all different colours and textures with lots of intricate details.  So we quickly decide we have to do 2 passes…one with the Zoom lens to get close ups of some of the cool statues etc and the wide angle to get the actual buildings in.

There’s some amazing artwork and it’s great to see that they are constantly keeping up the maintenance etc. 

We go into the temple of the Emerald Budha but unfortuantly they don’t let you take pics…oh well he’s pretty damn small.

Must say this was the place to see the Canon L lenses…we counted at least 4 different people with the 17-40L and pretty sure someone else had my 70-200 aswell.

After we’d finshed wandering around we go grab some cash and i spot a bookshop with my lonely planet guide.  So John is forgiven .

We bump into helpful stranger #2 who starts talking to us on the street and then after awhile points out some stuff to see and organises a tuk-tuk to take us to all of them and wait for us at each point.

So we got to see the standing Budha (45m high), sitting Budha, the oldest temple and then to the sleeping Budha.

I’d seen pics of this guy but it blew me away.  45m long with mother of pearl feet.  This is where lugging the tripod carried off as I could take some nice pics in low light and use the wide to fit everything in.

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Bankok roads remind me a lot of Lima..cars everywhere that just seem to merge and turn and ppl just let you in…but without the HORN of Lima.  They have cool traffic lights that count down.  So wen red..you know how many secs till you can go and when green..how long till you have to stop.

So ater this we’re all templed out and tourist place’d out so we head back to the hotel to grab our bags for the trip to Ayutthaya