Welcome to Bangkok 3-16-07

The Thai alphabet is quite fancy! Many of the vowels are the same but they add curly Q's, flips and accents to change the letters! I imagine it would be a very hard language to learn. We got by, by holding our hands together at our chests and bowing slightly and saying "Sa Wa Di Ka". At least that is what women say. It means, how are you, and a basic general greeting like Aloha, or War Eagle!! The sign here is a directional sign to one of their local universities. The english written below was quite normal for most signage. Here's a look at the congestion. Also, a glimpse of the flags. The red, white and blue one is their countries' flag and the golden one is in celebration of their king's 80th birthday and 60th year on the throne. He is the longest reigning king in history of any monarchy.

You can see the sleek buildings next door to shacks. Everyone here has something to sell. Whether it is dried fish or silk, everyone is selling. No beggars to speak of which was good. Our guides' name was "City". I called him "Taxi" once and he still answered!! He was nice and took us on a whirlwind tour of his city. Maybe that is where his name comes from.

Our first stop, The Temple of the Golden Buddha. This Buddha was found in the river encased in concreted in the 1950's. The people that found it thought it was just a really heavy concrete Buddha. When they were taking it out of the river, it cracked, and much to everyone surprise, inside the encasement was this solid gold buddha. When they built the shrine, they built it AROUND the Buddha, so he cannot be stolen. He is too heavy and he will not fit through the dorways. There are no guards here!!
Family portrait with the golden Buddha. The altar in front of the Buddha gets gifts during the day from people offering prayers. They bring flowers, water, and hard boiled eggs! I asked City what happens to the eggs and he said they take them to low income people for food.
A close up of the eggs. Charles would not have minded a deviled egg at this point!!
Next stop, The Grand Palace! This place is huge!! The grounds cover an area over 218,000 square meters and is surrounded by 4 long walls!! It was built in 1782. It houses the royal residence and government offices and most of all the Emerald Buddha. The way " City" was building up the beauty are rareity of this Emerald Buddha we could not wait to see it even though it was about 1,000 degrees and they made me RENT a skirt to wear, even though my shorts covered my knees!! Putting on that tent of a skirt about did me in! First may I say, the grounds are fabulous. All manicured finer than most women's fingernails! On to the Emerald Buddha. The Emerald Buddha is not made of emerald. It is in fact carved from a block of green jade and was first discovered in 1434 in Chiang Rai. It too was camoflauged. It was found in plaster by an abbot. The abbot saw that some of the plaster had flaked off and chipped away at it to reveal this emerald buddha. He thought it was emerald, thus the story began! No pictures are allowed. It is a small Buddha in my opinion. It is only about 2 feet high. It is however, high on top of an altar and they put clothes on it. They change his clothes with the seasons, those being summer, rainy season, and winter. I don't think the no white shoes after Labor Day applies here!!

These shots are on the grounds of the Grand Palace and up close at the outside of the Emerald Buddha. The up close golden scary things are Garudas.

One of the manicured gardens. They were amazing.
Kathleen and Nicky with a new friend.

Garudas are very popular at this palace.

There was an outside temple where people could make offerings and prayers. You can see behind the kids what they are doing is lighting insense.
This man had made his offering of lotus flowers and knelt to pray. Please remember it was about 1,000 degrees. These people are very devoted to their beliefs and some make offerings 5 times daily. The Buddists, seem to be a peaceable group. They believe in reincarnation and have a high respect for all living things.
This man makes his offering and prayers for the day. No shoes on while you are making offerings and prayers. Nicholas has gotten used to this but is still not happy about it. You can never point your feet directly at the Buddha and you can never have you back to the Buddha.

Next on the tour, The Temple of Dawn. This was erected to house real relics of The Enlightened One, The Buddha himself. Nicholas asked our guide if it was a tooth. His response was no, he was creamated. It is just a handful of dust from India! Look closley. This temple which you cannot climb to the top any longer due to accidents, is not one you can go in. It is sealed with the relics inside. You can however walk up the STEEP stairs and wind around it. It is decorated with broken pieces of china. Look closely, I think you can tell. It is magnificently done.

After sweating through our clothes and even the rented ones, it was time to call it a day and head to a nice shower. We of course got stuck in traffic and had a chance to watch 4 little kids that were at least as hot as we were take broken pieces of styrofoam they had found and jump into a city street fountain that was in the middle of a huge round about! I have no idea how they crossed the street. They all looked to be 3-5 years old. Bathing suits were not required.

HOT, FUN day. We have big plans for tomorrow!!