We then headed towards the river and caught a boat to the Khao San Road area where we had lunch. From there we walked towards the Grand Palace. We had a bit of an annoying experience on the way -- we were approached by some people who tried to give us some seed to feed the pigeons. I wasn't keen on this at all as I hate pidgeons but they kept pestering us and shoving seed into our hands and saying happy new year. We didn't want to insult anyone and were worried that it was some sort of tradition for Chinese new year so eventually we gave in and a few handfuls of seed. Things turned nasty then when they started trying to make us pay then for the seed. One of the guys followed us quite a long way and Matt ended up having to get a bit aggressive with him and give him 50 baht. This was alot more annoying than all of the begging we had experienced in Cambodia.
We finally made it to the Grand Palace.
This is completely breath-taking -- everywhere you turn there are stunning buildings decorated in gold. There's even a replica of Angkor Wat. The Emerald Buddha is housed here. This is the most sacred statue in Thailand and is actually carved from jade rather than emerald. Wat Phra Kaew, the temple which houses the buddha was packed with worshipers on their knees.After spending a couple of hours and the Grand Palace and taking hundreds of photos, we headed towards Wat Pho and the temple of the reclining buddha. The reclining buddha is gold plated, 46 meters long and 15 meters high....it really has to be seen to be believed.
The last week must have caught up on us because by late afternoon we were both wiped out. We headed back to the hotel for a few hours. Later on we had a really delicious dinner at the Lemongrass restaurant very close to our hotel, and the headed to Patpong to experience a different side of Bangkok. The less said the better!
It was quite a late night and but we don't have an early start and I didn't want our last day to end.
