Grand Palace Bangkok

What an amazing place! We got up early to make our way into the centre of Bangkok, and the journey in itself was a great experience – first a super efficient and air conditioned Sky Train (which we struggled initially to navigate and felt very much like all the confused-looking tourists you see on the underground platforms back home) to Sapan Taksim then an unexpected (we thought it would be a standard river ferry) but pleasant surprise of a longboat upriver to the Grand Palace. Both were great fun and an added bonus to the day.

For our visit to the Grand Palace, we had to make sure we were suitably attired, covering ankles and elbows, and for us we were smart, but we were nothing compared to the many, many Thai mourners, here to show respect to the King who died last year in October, and for whom there is a year of state mourning. We got there early as we knew the crowds and heat later on in the day would be unbearable, and for the first couple of hours we were able to find a quiet spot in the shade to read about the amazing architecture and designs of the various temples and buildings, and I was able to take most of the photos without too much intrusion from other visitors.

I make no apologies (again!) for the ridiculous number of photos I’m including in this post, but they are much vetted and reduced from the original number taken. Hopefully they speak for themselves in terms of opulence and majesty -literally- and you are able to get a sense of the magnitude and intricacy of the temples and their design.

I think my favourite feature of the Grand Palace – one of the six (pairs of) Demon Guardians protecting the Palace

Imogen was disappointed it wasn’t real gold, but that didn’t detract from the impact of the giant stupa which enshrines remains of the Lord Buddha

Taken by Lachlan!

Taken by Imogen!

What do you think YOU’RE looking at?!

From about 10am, the place started to fill up but that made for some nice photos too!

However, once we’d been herded through the temple which houses the Emerald Buddha (no photos allowed), the sun was burning furiously and the number of tourists seemed to have multiplied exponentially – predominantly Chinese tourists and their umbrellas – and we decided to call it a day.