Final Stop - Beautiful Bangkok

Our guide, Sarah, picked us up at the airport and we told her that we wanted to see a large jewelry operation 

because Thailand is famous for its rubies and sapphires.

She took us to a huge center where you could observe the stones being cut, polished and set 

and a huge showroom where employees followed you around, hoping you would buy. 

(Roger and I remember going to a similar one of these big jewelry operations 

when we visited Bangkok in 1986.)

Jodie and the girls tried on pretty rings but decided not to buy. Jodie has her own jeweler in SLC 

and would prefer to get her jewelry there, knowing exactly what she is getting. 

But it was fun to look.

We were then taken to the waterfront of the Chao Praya River to a Thai food cafe, 

where we had lunch and another of these addicting mango smoothies. 

The mangoes in this part of the world are so flavorful and sweet!

After lunch, we boarded a private long-tail boat for a tour of the backwaters 
of the Chao Praya River along quiet canals of Bangkok. 

Bangkok was built on and along the water, as are many Thai cities.

These pics of King Rama X and his current wife were on this poster on the main waterway. 

His wealth is estimated around $30 billion.

This is the Grand Palace in the background. 

We toured it the next day and got many gorgeous pics of it.

A long-tail boat like ours

Roger was fascinated how they used an old car engine to propel us through the water. 

They were chug chug noisy!

We waited to pass through locks several times to accommodate changing water levels.

On one side of the canal we saw fairly nice homes and restaurants . . .

. . . and on the other, dense housing and rundown shacks.

Waiting to pass through another lock

There was crazy traffic in Bangkok, as in the other cities we visited, but Bangkok seems more modern, 
definitely than Phnom Penh and even Ho Chi Minh City, though the latter two 
are similar in size (over 8 million). 
There was a greater car to motor bike/scooter ratio in Bangkok.
All of the other cities we visited were even more loaded with motorcycles and scooters.
There were also still these tuk tuks, 
as shown below in this pic of Roger and I in 1986.

Reaching 263 feet tall, The Khmer-style Buddhist Temple of Dawn is the highest temple in Thailand. 

It was built in the 1700s.

Millions of small pieces of colorful Chinese porcelain were used as ballast (to provide stability) 

on ships and that is what was used to decorate this beautiful temple.

I absolutely love the lovely designs on this beautiful structure!

We returned in the boat back to Tha Maharaj, then were taken to see the Reclining Buddha.
We saw so many interesting sights as we walked along the streets to the temple.

Outside the temple where the Reclining Buddha resides in Wat Po.

Here's the first peek at the Reclining Buddha's head.

We were amazed at the intricate inlaid mother-of-pearl designs on the back of the Reclining Buddha's feet!

I turned the pic right side up to see the design more clearly.

I found this pic of the Reclining Buddha we took in 1986. As you can see, 

he is now shined up with more gold leaf.

Another Buddha in one of the buildings

The Golden Buddha

Thought to be constructed in the 13th or 14th century, this Buddha made of gold is worth 250 million dollars. 

Hidden under plaster and mosaic colored glass in the 17th century 

so it would not attract attention and be stolen, 

it stayed that way for over 200 years. 

Then in 1954 it was being moved to a new building, the ropes broke and it fell to the ground, 

breaking some of the plaster and revealing the gold.

Buddhist Monks praying in the temple

As we were leaving the grounds to return to our hotel, we got some beautiful pics at sunset.

We stayed at a unique boutique hotel that was run by a British couple. 
He was an architect, she a decorator and they both had their doctorates at Cambridge.

Rick and family set out walking to find some dinner. Josh was craving McDonalds 

and our small hotel had a vegetarian restaurant. That sounded great to me with my sore feet, 

so we called downstairs for a reservation. 

It turns out it was a very popular restaurant. We ordered Italian and shared a very good vegetarian lasagna 

and a delicious Caesar salad.

We shared some coconut sorbet in this cute dish for dessert.

Next morning, Sarah picked us up and took us to the Maeklong Railway Market. 

For a long section of the railroad track, vendors are set up selling fresh fish, produce 

and many other products of Thailand. 

Four times a day, a little warning bell goes off over the speaker system and the vendors 

partially pull back their awnings, motion for everyone to scoot back. 

Just as a large train rounds the bend to the market, it sounds a fog horn, 

then rumbles through with about a foot to spare on the sides. Once the train has passed, 

the vendors immediately and quite nonchalantly put the awnings back into their original places. 

Everyone went back to normal as if nothing extraordinary had ever happened 

and it was hard to believe that tons of metal had just rumbled its way through!

It was fun to walk along and see all of the unusual things for sale.

When we were almost to our van, we ran onto this vendor roasting kranlan, 
like we had by the side of the road in Cambodia. 

"Yum," said Josh.

Sarah next took us southwest of Bangkok to a delta area full of coconut plantations and fruit orchards. 
We stopped at a coconut plantation and Sarah climbed up the ladder of a coconut tree . . . 

. . . so, of course, so did Grandpa!

Fertile soil grew lots of pretty flowers.

And lots of not-so-pretty things thrive there, too!

We saw how they make coconut sugar . . .

. . . extracting the juice . . .

. . . and boiling it down to make sugar.

The kids cracked open a coconut and then scraped out the delicious meat.

Upstairs in the home was a sort of museum and Josh, who played percussion in middle school in the band, 

tried his hand at this ranat ek, a Thai xylophone.

We then boarded a boat and were off to the Saduak floating market.

Here and there along the way we spotted these along the river's edge.

Thai floating markets are famous and we experienced them in 1986 in the Chao Praya River 
right around Bangkok. Today, we traveled about an hour and a half to experience one. 
It seems that this is the old way of doing business and is gradually being replaced with modernization. 
Now there are many tourist boats and native boats are going along, trying to sell their wares to them. 
The pic below shows a busy one, but we experienced a quieter day.

It was fun to see many unusual sights along the way!

Thailand has lots of varieties of snakes!

On our trip thirty-four years ago, Roger and I both got to get up close and personal with them!

Roger actually has two of them wrapped around his neck!

We walked through a market to get back on our bus. Our guide stopped us here 

to sample some coconut pancakes. 

Oh my gosh - we all freaked out at their deliciousness!

It seemed that Thailand was full of color on steroids!

Back in the city across from the Grand Palace, we enjoyed a Thai lunch. 

I saw Tom Kha Gai soup on the menu, and even though it was so hot, I had to have it. 

I made it a few months ago and I really like it. Everyone else had a delicious curry.

The Grand Palace is the most popular tourist spot in Thailand. 

It is knock your socks off gorgeous! 

Begun in 1782, its style is traditional Thai mixed with European Renaissance 

and there are over one-hundred buildings on the grounds.

No member of the royalty has lived there since 1925.

We took tons and tons of pics because the intricacy of the mosaic work 

and the beauty of the patterns and the colors and the architecture is stunning!

Sorry, I included a crazy number of pics - couldn't help myself!

It is just so dang pretty!

There is a scaled-down replica of Angkhor Wat, Cambodia, within the walls. Why? 

King Rama IV had the idea of moving one of the Khmer temples to Thailand, when they were ruling Cambodia.

 Having inspected various sites, his officials informed him that they were too large to move. 

He ordered that a miniature replica be constructed.

Interesting, right?

A pic of me at the Grand Palace in 1986

The Emerald Buddha is located in the Ordination Hall; it is one of the most important temples in Thailand. 

The Emerald Buddha is actually made out of precious jade.

The Government or Parliament House

Josh, without a word, came over by me while our guide was talking and started fanning his very hot grandma. 

He is the  cutest boy!

After one more very full day of sight-seeing, we traveled back to our hotel in our van.

What wonderful travel companions they have been!

For our final night of our tour, we decided to walk to the JW Marriott and have a Japanese teppanyaki dinner. 

That is one of the kids's favorite kinds of food.

We had quite a long walk and we took pics of Thai food dinner prep going on along the streets.

We all had lots of fun interacting with our chef. 

After our meal, he wrote this message in sugar for us, 

then had the kids write hearts and numbers with the sugar, too.

Next morning, we embarked on a long, twenty-four hour, including waiting time at airports, 
journey home to SLC, 

where we stayed overnight with Rick and Jodie, then went to see Grandma the next day 

before we drove home to St. George that night.

 What amazing memories we will have!

This was truly a trip of a lifetime and we couldn't have had nicer, funner, smarter, livelier, 

happier, kinder companions to journey with!

Thanks, Rick and Jodie, for inviting us to tag along!