Guess wat I saw today

I decided to do the tourist thing today and head to the Grand Palace and temple of the Emerald Buddha. Since it is closed from 11:30 to one I decided to leave it to the afternoon and went to the bookshop in the morning, where I bought a map of the city – bit better than the free tourist maps, a Thai for beginners book and a lonely planet guide.

I spent the rest of the morning looking at the language book. I do have a phrase book from earlier trips but I didn’t find and pack it for this trip.

I got a taxi from the hotel and got to the temple just after 1. It is very colourful, as you can see from the pics. Quite unlike the Muslim buildings in India and more like the Hindu ones.

The complex has the temple of the Emerald Buddha, actually made from jade, which was close this afternoon because, I heard, a visit from the prince. I got a shot using the zoom and overexposure but it’s not very clear. The first shot is the front of the temple and the second the side and the bell tower.

The upper terrace has a number of buildings including the gold tiled reliquary and behind it is a model of Ankar Wat. The buidlings also have figures of demons and angels on them.

All around the enclosing walls are murals depicting the story of the Ramakien, some of which were being restored at the moment. I suspect this is a never ending task, like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

After exiting the temple area you come to the palace grounds, with a number of meeting halls and the palace itself, which has a weapons museum on the ground floor - swords etc to the left, guns to the right.

There is another museum with items from the restoration, original pieces etc. Unfortunately you can not takes pics inside most of the buildings, but the stone figures were out the front of it..

I checked out the Royal coin and insignia museum before I left the complex and caught a water taxi south and then a taxi back to the hotel.

After another session of pre dinners drinks in the club, we headed out and finished at a sea food restaurant. I felt this was the worst meal for value and perhaps for what we had as well. For nearly half as much as the Seaside in Hua Hin we had river prawns in garlic and lemon – 1 each, sea bass – which was good, a spicy crab salad – only mediocre and fish cakes. It was one of those places where they weight everything and charge by the gram. Ho hum, hopefully it’ll get better again.