BANGKOK.. the Royal Grand Palace and Wat Pho..

by docdivatraveller - 3/10/2014

In my last post I described a half day temple tour of Bangkok. Well thats not the end. I had expressed my displeasure about the ill and commercial designing of tour packages by the agencies. That day too it was proved how badly managed these packages are.
We had payed 100 Thai baht for entering into Wat pho. But due to supposed time constraint, our guide only made us visit the statue of reclining Buddha. What a loss!! Wat Pho has the largest temple area in entire Thailand and what we saw was just the main statue!! Dissatisfied but unwillingly we had to accompany our group and exit. As the half day tour came to an end, we immediately set off in a tuk tuk to go to Royal Grand Palace, THE place which I had been eyeing on the day we decided to visit Bangkok. But sadly, things did not turn out as we wanted it to.
Because of the silly half day tour we got free at about 1 pm and by the time we reached the palace, it was already half past 2 :( To add to our woes, we came to know that the ticket to the palace is 400 THB. Thats quite a sum because we hardly had much time left for the excursion. Unwillingly, we decided to ditch going inside and took pleasure from exploring it from outside; which was magnificient in itself.
After the palace we remembered that we had hardly seen Wat Pho. As we were nearby, we decided to follow google map ( my husband) and walked to the temple. Suddenly it started pouring cats and dogs. We had only one umbrella to protect from the sun; we neeeded another one to protect our camera and belonglings. While I stood in the shade, hubby made a quick run outside to buy one. All set, we began exploring the vast campus.
What fascinated me most about the architecture were the intricate colour details and the hugeness of the structures. Also there were thousands of Bonsai plants adorning the huge gardens. We spent about two hours walking and climbing the various monuments as that was only what we could spend. I am sure we must have left about half of the campus unexplored. But something is definitely better than nothing. At least I can say that I have seen Wat Pho and not only the Reclining Buddha. It was indeed an enriching experience.

the impressive Royal Palace...

the temple of Emarald Buddha...

the perfectly manicured lawns of Grand Palace...

the vast campus of Wat Pho...

it was raining cats n dogs...

mirror mirror on the wall....

intricately painted shrines...

tiny me with huge architecture...

the array of Buddha statues...

an interesting Bonsai...

Tips:
1. Entry to Royal grand palace is 400 THB. make sure you have enough time to utilize the money you have paid for.
2. Cover up your legs or keep a sarong handy. Otherwise you have to rent it from the stalls before entering the palace.
3. it can rain anytime in Bangkok. keep an umbrella handy.