Day 23 & 24; Hello to Bangkok

Day 23: Today was a long day. First we paid a visit to the largest and oldest temple in the Bangkok (aka 'City of Angels') Wat Pho. Wat in Thai means 'Temple', to say hello to the world's largest reclining Buddha. It was pretty amazing the buddha is 46m long and 15m height, it illustrates the passing of Buddha into final nirvana. The buddha is modelled out of plaster around a brick core and finished in gold leaf. His feet display 108 different characteristics of Buddha.

Then we headed to the Grand Palace to pay a visit to the king in his 'Royal Palace'. Unfortunately, the king wasn't there, but were were able to got thru the temples and then to the palace. The temples reminded me a mix of the Indian and Chinese cultures and alot of the Khmer style temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.. When I entered the temples the first thing I saw were two giant 'Garuda's', in Thai they are know as 'Khrut', protecting the temples. Garuda's are from Hindu mythology, they are half man and half monkey. There were all different sizes of Garuda's in the temple area. They were holding up different parts of the temple. I also saw 'Kinnari', which is from the Indian epic Himmawatprad, but was modified to fit in with the Thai way of thinking, it is a half bird and half woman. Alot of the architerue on the roofs of the temple reminded me alot of the roof styles in Beijing. I also saw huge Chinese stone figure protecting the temple. As we walked more through the temple area we even saw a minature model of Angkor Wat, which I had seen in Cambodia. Then we went to the Wat Phra Kaew, which is home to the emerald buhha. The emerald buddha was perched high in the temples. There were buddha's leading up on both sides to the emerald buddha. The Emerald Buddha is 48.3cm. wide and the height, including the base, is 66cm. It is made of green jasper, at type of jade. The Emerald Buddha was covered in gold robe...

As you can you see Thai and Cambodian culture are very similiar, and they are both influenced by the Indian and Chinese culture. The Thai language is also based off of Sanskrit. The food reminds me of a blend of the Chinese and Indian culture, they have alot of the noodle dishes, they even had the boiled rice for breakfast which I had when I first arrived to Hong Kong. They have alot of the curry dishes, which is similar to the curry dishes in India. We went to a Summer Festival and and saw some of the culturual dances, the outfits and the dance reminded me alot of Cambodian and Indian style of dancing and outfits.

Food: Feeling daring that night I tried a fried 'grasshopper', a little relutant at first, I decided to give it a go. The vendor had many fried insects, grasshopper, different bugs, and worms. I decided to go for the grasshopper as it looked the least slimiest. It tasted like a shelled fish, pretty crunchy...Then I tried a Thai Taco, the taco was a sour/sweet, it had a sour paste in the middle and then put coconut and green onions on it, it was pretty tastey. They sell the best shakes you can get, they have all different kinds coconut, watermelon, etc... The beers they have are Chang and Singha, which more or less taste to me like Budd/Miller, so I really didn't enjoy them too much. They don't use chopsticks, they use a big spoon and fork, and they don't use soy sauce, they use alot of different sauces, one of my favorite is the fish sauce with hot chili peppers and garlic.

Day 24: We went to the 'Wat Arun', aka...'Temple of Dawn', we took the skytrain over and then the river boat to the temple from our hotel. It's named after the Indian god of dawn, Aruna. The spires of the temple are similar to the Khmer style, which I saw in Cambodia. We saw alot of the same things that we saw the temples outside th Royal Palace, the Garuda's, Kinnari, and the big stone Chinese figures. Then we headed to the Pennisula Hotel for tea time, it was very good and very inexpensive.