Thailand Trail Sunday 15th January

 Today did not start well. The plan was, take a tuc-tuc to Chang pier on the riverside, then follow the Lonely Planet city walking tour. However the tuc-tuc driver had other plans for us. He decided to take us to a private pier another pier altogether in order that his mate could try to sell us a trip in his long tailed boat.  He was offering an hour on the river for 2000 baht (£50). To put things in perspective the tourist hop on hop off boat is 200 bahts for an all day ticket. We declined the offer and walked to another public pier and were eventually back on track. 

The large river flowing through the middle of Bangkok is called Chao Phraya. It is a little less busy than the roads, but not a lot. In front of us you can see a blue tourist boat, a private long tailed boat and an orange flag ferry.  The boats are in and out of the piers like bees round a beehive. 

You can't miss this ziggurat of a Buddhist temple called Wat Arun. The 82 metre high tower was constructed in the first half of the C19, remember Bangkok was only built here at the end of the C18 after the Burmese had sacked the old capital at Ayuthaya. This is also the only Buddhist temple you can climb up. I digress however because we will be back here later. 

 

Now we're off the boat and inside the grounds of the Grand Palace built by King Rama l from 1782. Remember they had lost the old capital and thousands of citizens to the marauding Burmese in the north. After initial construction on the west side of the river they moved across and started this complex. Not just a Palace but also an administrative centre and a religious temple of the first water. The so-called Emerald Buddha, Thailand's most venerable relic was given a home here. 

It is the building to the right with the tall columns called Wat Phra Kaew that now houses the Emerald Buddha and is what all the fuss is really about. People,like us, queue barefoot (no fun on baking hot marble) around the parapet to gain entry and gaze on the figure. Photographs, of course are not allowed. To be honest I found it to be a little disappointing. Yes, there was a splendid shiny gold leaf array  of figures and imagery filling the entire end wall, surmounted by the Buddha figure who is only 66cms high. It was a bit like that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Toto the dog pulls back the curtain to reveal behind it is an old man pulling levers and using a microphone. Come to think of it, that was the Emerald  City wasn't it? However for most people he very clearly really was the wizard of Buddha. The Buddha has three sets of clothes made for him, one for each season. No, there's no fur coat just three varieties of gold and jewellery. 

Although the buildings in this complex are mainly a couple of hundred years old,  many of the artifacts are much older and come from a variety of locations. Here you can see the incredible attention to detail on the decoration of the building itself. Be careful, the lions bite. I guess this shot is bit of a cliche. 

We are now entering the Royal and administration area of buildings, most of which there is no access. A kind visitor offered to take our pictures and as he was a photographic buff with an impressive camera, this shot should be a really good one. 

The next range of buildings are where the King used to live. Like us, he has sensibly downsized now. They were built in the latter part of the C19 and the architect was Italian. They look like they have been dressed in two sets of clothes. Oriental above the waist and European below. The white stone part is inspired by classical Greek whereas above we have archetypal Thai Buddhist. In fact the columns to the left of the front door are Doric order and those to the right are Corinthian.

This place has definite parallels with the Forbidden City in Beijing a huge walled-in  compound containing massive wealth and the results of immense unrewarded labour, many of whose contents, to this day are excluded to the hoi polloi. Come to think of it President Ceausescu did much the same thing as a building project in Bucharest only his was me, me, me and left out the god bit. 

 I must say that the landscaping and gardens were hugely impressive with bougainvillea, hibiscus, gardenia, jasmine etc giving colour to the evergreen bonsais and topiary. After our false start, that about concluded out sightseeing for the day.