Bangkok - Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew

We made a point to get up early this morning so we could hopefully beat some of the crowds and heat. The streets were still wet with rain from the night before and it was wonderfully not-crazy-hot. We had breakfast at an open air restaurant next door to our hotel, and while we were there a guy came by selling Goat Balls Tea (that's the Harvey Mudd College speak for Thai iced tea with tapioca balls in it; I think the rest of the world knows it as bubble tea and it seems to be more a Chinese thing). And get this, he had the tea blended with the ice and was selling it for only 10 Bhat for a big glass. Sweet. If only we knew where to find him on demand.

The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew were incredible. They had the same kind of mirrored exteriors as at Wat Pho, but there were more of them and they were bigger. Disappointingly, most of them you couldn't enter, and it was all the more disappointing for the brochure describing all the cool stuff we couldn't see housed inside each one.

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From Drop Box

We did, however, get to see the Emerald Buddha, which is actually carved of jade, and was found a few hundred years ago under a plain plaster Buddha, presumably put there to hide it from invaders. After all the hype, it was really small and hard to see up on an ornate and well adorned alter. Naturally, no photos allowed.

Our favorite part were the illuminated murals on the inside of the walls, which depicted stories from the Ramakien, which is the Thai version of the Indian Ramayana, which I'm assuming is something like a South Asian Iliad/Odyssey/Aeneid. Unfortunately we don't know any of the stories depicted, but they looked good. Somebody should create an illustrated version of the Ramakian using these images along with the English text and add it to Project Gutenberg so I can read it. There was also restoration work in progress.

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There were also a variety of other cool old things, such as a model of Angkor Wat, a monument to elephants, some great guardian dudes, paintings on the stone "fences" between areas, lots of pretty tropical flowers, and some great flowerpots.

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From 102_PANA

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From 102_PANA

From 102_PANA

We hurried through the rest of the grounds, which were not as interesting, since by this time we'd been there several hours. But we did stop to admire this building, which was designed by an Italian and built by Thais and combines Italian renaissance architecture with Thai architecture.

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We also popped in briefly at the museum, where we learned that all the mirror work on the outside of these buildings has been recently renovated. The original at this point has no shine and looks, at a glance, like dark old wood.

We were hoping to get to Dusit Park (entry free with Grand Palace ticket) and the Vimanmek Mansion on the grounds to see some traditional Thai dancing at 2pm. It took longer than expected to get there, and we missed the dancing, but did manage to catch the last English tour of the mansion, which you are not allowed into without a tour. We were reminded of why we normally shy away from tours and guides. The accents were so thick we could hardly understand anything and there were so many people clumped together we could hardly see anything. However, part of the mansion was octagonal in design and it made me think of Chris and Newt's plans to build an octagonal house. We weren't allowed to take photos, but you might Google it.

We were required to check our bag (for a fee) before taking the tour, and then after getting it back we discovered that we also had to check it to visit the other minor museums on the grounds. Frustrating. Anyway, the whole place was closing for the day 45 minutes after the end of our tour, so we caught a bus back to out hotel and had another Thai dinner on the street that couldn't be beat. I did get one photo there, of this great sign in the bathroom. Squat toilets are definitely on their way out here.

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