Bangkok

After being at (and in) the beach and being so relaxed it was strange to find myself in a HUGE, crazy, noisy, polluted city - luckily Bangkok was also still full of friendly Thais and good food. After a while the size and craziness of it starts to get a bit more manageable and things start looking much more interesting ;0) This is a street called Patpong, it was right next to my hotel so I hit in the night I got there (this is around midnight or so) on my way out dancing... people pretty much just use the sidewalks for everything from food to selling junk (very aggresively - that's the worse thing about Thailand), I don't think they really know what "zoning" laws mean ;0)



The next day I took a cruise up the Changii river (which is so crowded with boats it looks like a highway) which is a great way to get around as it gets you away from the crowd and give you really good views of the most interesting historical places in the city.

My first stop off was the Temple of the Emerald Budda - it was a very large, ornate complex of temples and really fun to just get lost in... Unfortunately the temple with the Emerald Budda (which is really made of Jade and caused lots of wars for a few hundred years) was closed, but you can almost see it through the doorway... Down below were all kinds of Buddists burning incense, praying and making sacrifices (ok just leaving flowers and fruit)... this one picture does not do all the temples and ornate building justice... it was fantastic!



I also visited the Royal Palace which was very grand and (along with the other tourists) pestered the very formal stiff gurads in front of the doors for pictures...



After that (and my first Pad Thai lunch in Thailand.... which wasn't as good as Brown Sugar!!!) I headed for THE Bangkok temple... I can't remember what it was called right now but it translates as "Temple of the Rising Sun" - it was huge and the best thing was you could climb up for some great views of the city - by the way, those steps are LOTS steeper than you think..

The temple was right across teh street from the Temple of the Reclining Budda (with the largest reclining budda in the world in it) - this is one of the holiest sites in Thailand and was well worth having to wear full pants, long sleeve shirt and shoes all day in hot, muggy Thai weather so I could get inside... it was enormous (you can kind of get the idea from how high the people's heads are next to his feet)...

There were also about 1,000 (maybe exactly) other Budda's spread around the temple - it was pretty fascinating...

There's so much more I could say about Thailand and Bangkok but I'm in Singapore now (I know I still need to get some pics of Macau and Hong Kong [which I like A LOT] on here - hopefully I'll find some internet time soon - it was hard there as I finally had a friend with me (David) so we kept very busy the whole week ;0)

I'll try to do an update soon - for now I'm having a great time and looking forward to my 8 hours or so I have to explore this city - I'm off for a Singapore Sling ;0)