We booked this tour through Affordable World. Our first day was all about Bangkok temples. Thailand is mostly (about 95%) Buddhist. We started the day with the included part of the tour. We went to the Temple of the Golden Buddha (Wat Trimitr) and the Temple of the Reclining Buddha (Wat Pho). Then we went on the optional tour to see the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which are located in the same complex. Also part of the optional tour, we took a motorboat ride on the Chao Phraya River and saw the riverside Temple of Dawn (Wat Arun). Temple of the Golden BuddhaOur tour group left the hotel at 8:00AM and it took about 30 minutes in Bangkok rush hour to get to the Temple of the Golden Buddha. For this temple, as well as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, the dress code was that we needed shorts to cover our knees and sleeves to cover our shoulders. We were also allowed to use a sarong in order to cover us, if our clothing did not cover enough. Shoes that are easy to slip off should be worn at all times in Thailand, as it is custom to take off your shoes before entering buildings. We only took of our shoes before entering temples. Unlike the others, this temple was just a temple, no surrounding garden or stupas. We were told that there are royal temples and common temples, but I'm not sure which this one is. We saw both, and this one is in the middle ground. It is impressive that there is a substantially sized solid gold Buddha here in this temple, but that was the only thing to see. We quickly took pictures with the statue and left. Next door there was a smaller temple, definitely a common temple, that we went to. They had a smaller Buddha to pray to and a monk blessing people with holy water. At first, we didn't think it was right to participate in the ceremony, since we are not Buddhist. However, the tour guides insisted, so we knelt before the monk and he sprinkled us with holy water and gave us a bracelet. The guide said that typically the bracelet is placed on your left wrist, but I saw people holding up both their left or right hand. Once we went to both temples we were left time to explore. There were shops that sold elephant pants and shirts and stands that sold pineapples. Now that my trip is over, I realize the prices at these stands are very reasonable. We didn't try our hand at haggling here, but we defiantly could have. There were no prices written on the merchandise. The guides said that we shouldn't shop around the Temple of the Golden Buddha, as we were going to a bunch of shops the next day. But I would definitely recommend buying things here if you love them. If you're not completely sold, the markets we did the next day had the same things and even more variety, but they costed more. At least ask for prices around this market so you know what is too expensive for the rest of your trip. Temple of the Reclining BuddhaNext we went to the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, which was an approximately 10 minute drive. This temple was surrounded by a beautiful garden and stupas. Stupas are basically these pointy towers that contain the ashes of people who have died. We saw 5 foot ones and 100+ foot ones throughout the temple. The huge one are for the ashes of the family of the kings. Since kings are considered to be close to God, being buried next to kings is as close as you can get to God, which means the more money you have in life, the closer you can be to God in death. The reclining Buddha is located in a temple in the middle. We learned that the Buddha was built first, then the temple was built around the Buddha. I'm not sure if this contributed to why there are so many structural pillars on both sides of the Buddha. There were basically five foot windows looking into one segment of the huge statue. It made it difficult to capture it's entire form. There is a little gift shop on the grounds of this temple. Near the gift shop there is a place to get a free water bottle using your ticket stub. This was a welcome gift on a hot day in September. They also had water coolers to fill you water bottle with. It looked like filtered water, but we always used our Life Proof water bottle with a filter. The Grand Palace & The Temple of the Emerald BuddhaAfter lunch we started our optional tour to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The Temple of the Emerald Buddha is located inside the walls of the Grand Palace. The Grand Palace was built by the first king (Rama I) and housed the royal family for about 150 years after it was built. I was given the impression that this temple/palace were the main attraction for people going to Bangkok. About 2/3 of our group took this optional tour. This Palace grounds had a strict dress code. They specified that tight clothing and sandals were prohibited and shoulders and knees had to be covered by actual clothing (a sarong would not suffice). The people in our group who did not wear the appropriate clothing bought a short-sleeved shirt and/or elephant pants from salespeople standing outside the walls to the palace. We overheard staff kicking out people covered by sarongs as soon as we entered. The palace grounds were very impressive. It had gold and mosaic tiles decorating the many stupas and statues. It had many statues and paintings representing famous legends. On the outer court was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is made of Jade, not Emerald. We learned that Buddha wears a different style of golden "cloth" depending on the season. Absolutely no photos were allowed inside the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The Buddha was not very large, and honestly the least impressive Buddha we saw that day, but I believe the statue is the oldest of the ones we saw. The Throne Hall or Phra Thinang Chakri Maha Prasat is towards the middle of the Royal Palace grounds and has a European architecture. Our tour guide said the building originally looked completely European, as the King Rama V met two English architects who he brought back to design the buildings. Later they decided to make the top of the building look more Thai and added a gold, green, and red Thai styled roof. Now that the trip is finished, I can say with certainty that I highly recommend this optional tour, and it is on of the only optional tour I recommend doing.
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AuthorHi! I'm Amber. I love spreadsheets and painting. This blog is where I post about my crafts and adventures. Archives
November 2018
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