Day 3 - Last Day in Bangkok

Today we had a busy day visiting different tourist sites in Bangkok and of course looking at the accessibility of them for our project.

View from the river taxi ride up to the Grand Palace. This river taxi was operated by the Bangkok Transit System so it wasn't as scary to hop on and off. They actually stopped for you.

                                                          An important "wat" aka temple.

 

 Trying out the panorama feature on my new camera. 

Temple of the Emerald Buddha 

 

 

The Emerald Buddha. It is actually made of jade and is much smaller than it looks. It has three different outfits (summer, winter, & rainy season) that it wears and only the king is allowed to change its clothes.

 In the back is the coronation room. The wooden posts and building in the front is the area the king used to wait to board the elephant after his coronation ceremony. They have since switched to cars.

 The Grand Palace which is where the king used to live. It was built by King Rama IV and designed by the English. Its the same king from "The King and I." The original building had an English roof on it but the king didn't like it so he changed it to the traditional Thai roof used only for royal buildings and temples.

 They have their own attempt at the changing of the guards. There are two guards that stand in front and switch every hour. They are allowed to move unlike the British ones.

So far this has been a staple of at least one of my meals while in Thailand. Fried rice with egg and sometimes shrimp. 

 The Flower Market

 They really like their chili's in Bangkok. According to the man we met, Chiang Mai and the rest of the north traditionally does not serve as spicy of food as the rest of Thailand.

 Looking back into the flower market.

 According to our "teacher" I needed to take this picture. It is a woman making pad-thai, a staple of Thai food.

 Joy and our "teacher." He is a teacher at a local school. When he was young he lived and studied in a Buddhist Temple for 11 years before he had to join the military. Then he became a teacher at a local school in Bangkok. He saw Joy and I sitting outside of a wat looking at our map trying to decide were to go next. He encouraged us to go to the flower market and then take the long tail boat through the canal. He then walked us through the flower market and pointed out many of the traditional Thai flowers and they meaning. Most of the time it was related to a certain prayer to Buddha. 

A long tail boat like the one we took through the canal. It showed the less city side of Bangkok and most of the houses were on stilts and over the water.

 Some of the "wild life" we saw on the tour. These fish were very large and swarmed any bread or grain that was thrown in the water. We passed many people feeding the fish. We don't really know what the lizard looking thing is, but the man driving our boat was very excited to show us.

 Final view of the Grand Palace and Temple as we were finishing the boat tour.