Temple Tour

There has been so much going on since I last updated here. I have been literally run off my feet. I went on a temple tour in Bangkok weekends ago. The first stop was Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. I have never seen anything quite like the luxury displayed there. The buildings were the most ornate I had ever seen. There were buildings and monuments to house Buddhist relics and manuscripts surrounding the temple. One of the buildings was made of 1 inch aquare tiles in a moziac. These tiles were made of 24kt gold! Other buildings had gold, mirrors, coloured, stones, and paint in the most intricate patterns imaginable. There were entire doors made out of abalone shell in picture designs or mother of pearl. The floors were all marble. In buildings around the outside of the temple were hand painted images. (Somewhere around 167 in total) These floor to ceiling images told the mythology of the first Rama king defeating the demon king. There was a scale model of the old capital city which had been beautiful but was destroyed in war. Monkey guardians were situated all around, because in the story they came to the aid of the Rama king. There were also golden statues of angels. Male angels are half bird and half man. Female angels are half woman and half lion. The emerald Buddha was relatively small but considering just how much emerald it was made of that made it no less amazing.

Grand Palace itself was huge and ornate. Guards all in white stood at all the entrances. Like the guards at Buckingham palace they are not allowed to move or smile. In front of Grand Palace was a garden of giant Bonsai trees which my guide refered to as "beautiful topiary." There were many buildings all around in different architectural styles. One in particular looked like a big Victorian style mansion.
The next stop was the Reclining Buddha. The actual temple was closed for a ceremony of some sort but the reclining Buddha was in a separate building. It is huge and has designs in Mother of Pearl on its feet. Some people were dropping coins into pots along the side of the building. I don't know what the purpose was but there were many pots and they dropped a coin into each one. Standing guard at all the archways in the courtyard surrounding were statues that looked Chinese in style but some seemed to be wearing top hats.

The last temple was the Temple of the Rising Dawn. We took a ferry across the river to see it. It was huge and looked much like an aztec pyramid except it was covered with all sorts of designs and statues. There were two different levels with viewing platforms, accessed by any of four sets of stairs. The stairs were so steep that when I reached the top I actually considered staying up there rather than getting close enough to the edge to attempt climbing back down! The view was quite spectacular. We then caught a long-tailed boat, also referred to as a "James Bond" because they were used in a James Bond movie. We toured through the floating market, and got a good view of life along the canals in Bangkok. We then headed for lunch.

After lunch we visited a place were they polish gemstones and make and sell jewellery. They tried to sell us jewellery, and although it was quite a good deal the cheapest items looked too much like engagement rings for me to considering buying one.