Thailand, Bangkok. Didn't we pick a good time to come to Bangkok ! The first day we were here the
Skytrain was attacked with grenades, this effectively put the station involved out of action and the line from it suspended. We
accidentally bumped into a Red Shirts blockade at Siam City but was able to backtrack quite quickly! Apart from a few other isolated bombings it's been reasonably quiet, just a few roads and rail links which are either not working or are blockaded by the Army.
One of the reasons for being in Bangkok was to get Visas for Myanmar, hopefully by 3pm today we will have our passports back from the Embassy, The first few days here were mostly "sorting stuff out days" flights to Yangon,
Hong Kong etc, Air Asia has had a sale going on so we thought it was best to grab a few good deal while we could.
Because we have been to
BKK a few times we didn't want to repeat too much of the sight seeing we have done previous, so we
ahve carefully selected a few places which are new to us. A mention must be made to Mal's walking boots which gave up the ghost in Nepal..
Our first sightseeing venture in
BKK was to the Golden Mount temple, not easy to get too when the trains are not running ! but hey we got there, eventually. The Temple is really quite small but the steep spiral path to the top gives some nice 360 views of the city. As usual we find ourselves somewhere where it's really hot ! May is about the best time to come here for scorching temperatures, the average daily temp has been about 37 degrees peaking at 41 a few days ago. So climbing any sort of hill is quite a sweaty affair ! After visiting the Golden mount we wandered off to
look at some new temples not shown on our map !
The next day we did something quite nerdy, we visited the Bangkok Shell museum, it was really different and really interesting ( we think ) !! The shapes and sizes of some of the shell displays were quite amazing, these shell were
different to those we had heard about on the news, the basic difference was they were not the exploding type.
We were staying in a hotel off the
Sukumvit road which was really quite nice but a tad touristy, the road outside was one line of hotels and Western bars, so we decided to move to the
Silom Road area ( this was a bit closer to the troubles ) but a lot more interesting, that night we went to the
Silom Village Seafood restaurant, fab stuff ! With most of our forward planning complete it was back to sight seeing so we decided to pay a visit to
Ayuddhaya ( one of the old capitals of Siam ) we had been here previously but as there are some 250 plus temples we were able to see all new stuff ! Our return back to Bangkok was via boat along the
Chao Phraya river. Over the next couple of days we are off to see the Bridge over the River
Kwai and the Tiger temple, as
there will be a ton of pictures from these, they will go on a separate blog !
The Boots.
Bells at the Golden Mount Bangkok
Top Rank or Take Your Pick ! ( only the old gits will get that one ! )
Buddhas at the Golden Mount.
Temple wall designs
Lions Guarding the Golden Mount.
Temples across the road from the Golden Mount
Bangkok skyline a new block
underwraps.
The Shell Museum.
The Shell Museum even the wall lights use shells !
Night out on
Silom Road. Traditional dance and cracking seafood.
Pa Bang Temple Palace near
Ayuddhaya.
Topiary Elephants at the Pa Bang Palace.
Temple wall carvings
Pa Bang Palace
Pa Bang Palace
A slightly scruffy but friendly topiary Elephant !
Pa Bang Palace
Pa Bang Palace
One of the many Temple ruins at Ayuddhaya.
Ayuddhaya
Ayuddhaya Buddha Statue
Ayuddhaya
Siamese style Stoupa at Ayuddhaya
Bridge and tree flowers.
They have one of these in Pisa don't they ??
Ayuddhaya
There is a story to this, apparently the head of a Buddha statue fell off and landed at the foot of this tree. Many years later the head has become encapsulated in the lower roots..
Ayuddhaya.
One of the new temples at ayuddhaya.
Cambodian and Siamese temple designs Ayuddhaya.
Golden Buddha Ayuddhaya.
Bronze Buddha Ayuddhaya
This looks almost Nubian to my thinking ?
Multifaced Buddhist icon.
Reclining Buddha Ayuddhaya
Reclining Buddha Ayuddhaya
Fish in the Chao Phraya River.
Chao Phraya river front dwellings
Modern Bridge over the Chao Phraya river just as the storm arrives.
Grand Palace from the Chao Phraya River
Wat Arun from the Chao Phraya River
Boat landing on the Chao Phraya River
Chao Phraya River
Modern Buildings along the Chao Phraya River waterfront.
Another Moder construction..
End of Blog, next blog River Kwai & Tiger Temple.