Today Jim and I took the optional Bangkok tour. Megan and Eleanore decided they would spend the day touring on their own. We have not heard from them yet so I will add about that later.
Jim and I had a really good day. We saw the Golden Buddha that is solid gold-50+ tons of solid gold. Wow. To go into the temples to see the inside, we have to take off our shoes and step over the threshold into the temple. So all day today we took our shoes on and off! The second temple we saw was much bigger. It has many more buildings and was an exquisite setting. It was the reclining buddha. It is so huge that you really can't get a good photo of it. The crowds at all these places are quite slim and touring has been a real pleasure. Bangkok is really a beautiful city. THere are photos and monuments to the Thai king all over town, gorgeous floral gardens and flowers blooming everywhere. The people love their king and really revere him. It shows in the way of life here. You are not allowed to criticize three things-the government, the king, or religion.
Today was sunny this morning but by noon, it clouded up and we got a shower. It is clear again now. One of my throw away ponchos came in really handy. We had lunch at the Jim Thompson house restaurant. He is the one who built up the silk industry here in Thailand. We toured his house and gardens after lunch. We had a fruit plate for dessert and one new thing we had was pomelo-it is similar to a grapefruit but has a thick peel and is not sour. The dish we had for lunch was better than anything else we've had but I guess I am just not a fan of thai food. It had egg, noodles, shrimp and some other stuff-phathai, I think it is called. You add sugar, chili, vinegar, and /or fish oil. I added sugar...that was all. Jim did sugar and vinegar. As Jim said, it was edible. There is one man on our trip who really does not like it or try it so at least we are not the biggest problems food-wise! Tonight we have dinner on our own and are planning to go for pizza.
We rode on the sky train coming back to the hotel. That was neat. It really was a metro and gets you around fast and is very clean and nice. We walked through China town this morning and went through the chinese market. I didn't see any great China souvenirs -just the food and stuff that the Thai-Chinese community actually uses. We stopped and tried some fried pork chips in one of the shops. It was sort of sweet which was different. We rode by the royal palace and several other beautiful sights. Our bus is very nice. It is a regular bus but with much more leg room and our group can sit one to a seat. So it is very nice. There is a driver and an assistant and the assistant gets us iced water a couple of times during each of the tours. And he has a cool wet wipe for us as we get back on the bus. The driver sits there and says "steps" as we go in and out, to remind us to watch the steps. They are all just so polite and nice.
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