A cultural day all round.

We booked a walking tour at 11am this morning around the Grand Palace and the Wat Phra Kaew museum. Whilst we visited the Grand Palace a few years back when last in Bangkok, we didn’t have a guide then, so are hoping to pick up a lot more info and insight this time around.

Having left the hotel early, we decided to go for a wander near the river beforehand, but the heat of the day was already very punishing so after a brief walk, we decided to retire to our coffee shop meeting point and enjoy the benefits of air conditioning!

At 11am we met up with our guide, Tonk a very friendly Thai guide who we discovered was 67yrs old but looked a lot younger and who was very sprightly. Also on the tour was a family of three from Leeds, mum and dad along with their son, Charlie who’d only arrived from England the day before. It was good to have a chat with them, as they’d visited Thailand and Cambodia in the past and were able to suggest to us a few extra places to visit that they thought we’d enjoy.

The Grand Palace is on a huge scale covering 62 acres and is an ongoing project with new buildings and temples being added over time.

To give you a feel for the scale of the place, when we first entered the guide pointed to a wall of murals which stretched for 50ft and then explained it was one of 128 that depicted a fantasy story about prior kings….

Everywhere you looked was a feast for the eyes with gold painted monuments to Hindu and Buddhist gods.

What Tonk didn’t know about the Royal Palace wasn’t worth knowing, this despite the fact this was his first week doing this tour!

Our guide advised that there are over 200,000 temples in the whole of Thailand, but only a few have the royal seal of approval which is depicted by two towers in the miniature temple structure below.

After over 2hrs touring round the Royal Palace and the various associated temples we came across the Victorian inspired royal household built in the late 1880’s, following the then Kings visit to England.

Some of the temples are more scared than others and as a result we were required to remove our footwear and once inside sit silently on the floor in front of gold Buddhas, whilst the local Thai people paid their respects through prayer and meditation.

As the tour came to an end we were able to take the last few photos of intricate entrance gates before we came across the changing of the Royal Guard.

We were well placed for the changing of the guard, which pretty much happened right in front of us. We were so close and the guards so focused, all the while the heat was beating down. Definitely would not want to be wearing their thick uniform on a day like today.

As you walk around the city you see monks of all ages. Our guide explained that every male must become a monk before they are 21 and that they are required to serve for a minimum of 3mths.

After the tour we headed to a theatre in the Chinatown area to watch a Thai performance depicting various dances through the ages. Whilst it was very interesting, it was almost too much for Andy who closed his eyes a few times and was close to falling asleep!

By 4pm we started to flag, but pushed on managed a final tour of a local temple complex off the tourist route, where we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

After leaving the last temple it became clear that the locals like to have miniature Buddhas in their homes and hence there are shops that sell every gold sprayed object you can think of!

After a beer stop just outside of Chinatown, we headed back to our hotel for some much needed nourishment of the Thai persuasion. We are both getting into the street food offer and whilst the spice element is still a work in progress, it’s fantastically tasty and very filling.

Thankfully the Thai’s have a sweet tooth and we didn’t need much encouragement to try the chocolate and ice cream coffee with ice. It’s a meal in itself!

After a busy day, we retired early this evening and we are not embarrassed to admit that we just made it to 9.30pm before we hit the sack.

Tomorrow we plan to do a boat trip along the river and visit Wat Arun as well as the flower markets.

Later in the evening we will start our latest tour which will take us north of Bangkok to Chiangmai and on to Laos over the next week.