Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand is busy, fast, crowded, colorful, and full of excitement. We had 4 days to explore this dynamic city and I'm going to divide it up into two parts: Food and Temples. 

Thailand is 95% buddhist and so the temples are an important part of their culture. It was very common to see monks walking around the city in their orange tunics, especially in the morning receiving food from their followers. Food plays an important role in Thai culture, especially street food. The streets are lined with vendors selling fresh fruit, noodle dishes, shark fin soup, or meat kebabs. And at any given time of the day it was possible to see people sat down enjoying a bite to eat. 

On our first day in Bangkok, we took a Tuk Tuk  into Khao San, a busy street full of hostels, restaurants, and where the night market takes place. We immediately were drawn to the women making Pad Thai to order just for 50 Baht which is a little more than 1 euro! 

After our first night in Khao San, we went back every night to eat and do some shopping. We enjoyed trying dragon fruit smoothies, banana pancakes, deep fried potatoes, and coconut ice cream. They also were offering insects, but we weren't brave enough to try one! 

 On our second day, we ventured out to visit 3 different temple sights: Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun. We first stopped at Wat Phra Kaew - Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is near the famous Grand Palace. This is considered the most sacred of temples. All the temples were swarming with tourists, but especially this one. We fell into a tour guide trap, and paid to have someone show us around, which in the end only made us feel rushed. 

After we wandered on over to Wat Pho, which holds the largest reclining Buddha at 46 meters long and is to be worth around 13 million dollars.The soles of the feet are inlaid with mother of pearl, depicting 108 signs of the Buddha and the statue itself is covered in gold leaf. 

 Lastly, we took a boat across the river to visit at Arun- The Temple of Dawn. You can climb this temple, and it has two layers of very very steep stairs. While we were there, a thunderstorm came, and we waited it out under the roof of a nearby building. It was beautiful with the rain, hearing the hundreds of bells lined along the temple chime, and the thunder. 

Before entering each temple, we had to make sure that our shoulders were covered, that we weren't wearing too tight of clothing (so loose jeans, or a long skirt)  and had to take off our shoes. Buddhists consider the head of the body most sacred and the feet the least sacred. So we had to make sure we weren't pointing our feet at any buddha which is extremely disrespectful.  

Luca's new shirt he bought, after having sweated completely through his shirt on the first temple grounds

Notice the lovely cover up our tour guide gave me so that I could enter the temple

A note in a mini van to beware of where you point your feet!

Our other days in Bangkok, were actually spent taking day trips, which I'll explain in the next blog to come!