Well, we spent two nights there. I'm not sure exactly what that entitles us to, but it was a good time. It was a short 40-hour visit, but we saw a lot of the city, making it worthwhile. I think one word adequatly describes 80% of my Bangkok experience: hot. The city was ridiculously hot. I'm not sure, but I'll guess ~95 degrees with 90% humidity (I might be exagerrating, but you get the picture). Not only was the weather hot, but the food was hot (tasty, but hot).

While in the city we toured the King's palace grounds and temple--all of it was incredible. On of the most enjoyable places within the grounds was the temple that holds the old and famous Emerald Buddha (he is actually carved of jade, but his is very green, thus known as Emerald). While visiting this area we learned how adored the current Thai King Rama VIII is (it is not uncommon for people to wear Lance Armstrong-like "live strong" bracelets that say "long live the king"). The current king is 80 years old and at ~60 years is the longest reigning monarch in history. Pretty interesting stuff.

We also visited the renowned Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho ("Wat" is Thai for temple). This was also quite incredible. As you may have seen lately in the news, Thai people are deeply intertwined with Buddhism and very much respect the teachings of Buddha, so this was a fascinating visit as well.

Bangkok turned out to be a "must see" and like many other areas, I would have loved just a few more days . . .

written by  GoBlue on June 5, 2007 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Carl's Circuit
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sound cool carl and i love the song.......i remember

written by  staci on June 13, 2007

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Reclining Buddha is HUGE. And he is just a block away from great Thai Foot Massage Classes!

written by  Jesse Atkinson on July 23, 2007

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