A day of two halves, with the morning spent exploring the backwater canals of Bangkok followed by visits to Wat Pho temples and the huge flower market.

By 9am, we had had brekkie and picked up our ‘taxi’ ride for a tour of Bangkoks canals. The driver was on a mission and steered us around right turns and narrow passages like he was in a race – great fun for Andy, less so for Michelle who suffers from sea sickness!

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It was great to be able to see the underbelly of Bangkok, which whilst suffering with plastic pollution and some dead fish, was in the main a positive scene with people working and getting on with their lives in very basic dwellings.

This is one of the latest additions to the Bangkok skyline and was completed in 2021 to the tune of 600m baht (£14m) standing at almost 250ft in height.

After our tour of the canal, we exited at one of the ferry stops to be greeted by a Chinese couple in old traditional Thai dress all ready for their day of photos!

Wat Pho is the home of the Reclining Buddha which sits inside one of the main temples. Before entering Andy found this gong and performed as required before making a donation to the monks.

The reclining Buddha is a sight to behold and stretches 150ft and is 45ft in height. It’s an incredible work of art and design that creates some great views as you walk around the structure.

Buddhists practice their religion at Wat Pho, so as you walk around you seem them praying and helping tourists as they move around the various temples.

Within the complex is a museum to the art of Thai massage where it details the parts of the body that respond to massage and how this helps the body and your mind. Really interesting and demonstrating the Easts approach to alternative methods of therapy and meditation.

There are so many buildings and structures that catch the eye, it truly is an assault on the senses and as a result we ended up taking more and more photos. Here are the edited ones….

Returning back towards our hotel, we visited the flower market, close to Chinatown which was on a scale we weren’t expecting.

There are hundreds of stalls all with staff preparing, designing/decorating and selling a mix of flowers most as donations to the gods at the various temples. The yellow Chrysanthemums are the most popular and seen as complimentary to the gold colouring on many of the buildings.

After returning to our hotel, a quick shower and change we headed to the train station for an overnight journey to the north of Thailand and the city of Chiangmai.

It’s been a while since we last spent an evening on a sleeper train and we were duly impressed by the standard of the service and the speed in which the staff converted the seating to small beds. Whilst it was never going to be the most comfortable, it was still pretty good despite the wake up call in the morning at 5.30am!!!

Tomorrow morning we arrive at our Chiangmai hotel to drop off our gear, before stopping off for brekkie and then a visit to Doi Suthep temple The most secret temple in the North of Thailand. Until then.