{"id":2153,"date":"2011-09-10T11:29:31","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T19:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/?p=2153"},"modified":"2011-09-15T15:15:55","modified_gmt":"2011-09-15T23:15:55","slug":"thailand-day-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/?p=2153","title":{"rendered":"Thailand Day 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Above is a street view of Fortville, where Sam and I stayed for two nights in Bangkok. \u00a0Below are two photos of the fort down the street that it is designed after.<\/p>\n

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Our only plan for the day was to visit the palace. \u00a0We were within walking distance so we walked down the street. \u00a0Across from the fort we ate breakfast at a roti <\/a>restaurant.<\/p>\n

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Then we walked through a local college and along the river.<\/p>\n

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Everywhere in Thailand everyone wants to have one of these miniature buddhist temples on their property. \u00a0They are nearly as numerous as the photos of the king and queen and I’m assuming they are meant to bring good luck.<\/p>\n

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The below photo is from outside the gates to the Grand Palace<\/a>. \u00a0I’ll write a little bit below about what some of the buildings are, but for the truly curious you should check out the wikipedia page linked in the previous sentence. \u00a0It explains more about the 34 different important sites in the complex.<\/p>\n

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One of the first things we did was visit the Pavilion of Regalia, Royal Decorations and Coins<\/a>. \u00a0My dad would have loved it as they had many ceremonial swords on display. \u00a0We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, I thought I’d be able to find an image online of the three-headed naga sword, but a google search turns up nothing. \u00a0Perhaps it is usually called something else.<\/p>\n

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It was really hard to get photos without any people in them since we were going on a Saturday. \u00a0Huge amounts of Chinese tourists come to Thailand and it seemed like they were all here today. \u00a0Below is a photo of Phra Siratana Chedi, built in the 19th century and supposedly housing the ashes of Buddha.<\/p>\n

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Below is one of the corners of Phra Mondop, a Thai style library supposedly housing sacred\u00a0Buddhist\u00a0manuscripts.<\/p>\n

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I waited forever and ever but this girl with the pink dress just wouldn’t move. \u00a0Because there was so much foot traffic by this area I eventually gave up hope of getting a photo of the entrance to the library sans humans.<\/p>\n

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The next series of photos were taken around (but not in, as that’s not allowed) the temple of the emerald buddha. \u00a0Inside the temple is a two foot high jade statue of the sitting buddha\u00a0adorned\u00a0with a gold outfit that changes depending on the season.<\/p>\n

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We walked by Chakri Maha Prasat Hall<\/a> on our way out.<\/p>\n

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On our way back to Fortville hotel we walked along the sidewalk markets. \u00a0Below is advertising for a Thai dental laboratory.<\/p>\n

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We took the ferry to the other side of the river and back again.<\/p>\n

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At 3pm Sam’s brother-in-law, along with her sister and mother, picked us up to take us all to the floating market at Amphawa<\/a>. \u00a0I didn’t realize it was two hours from Bangkok. \u00a0On the way we passed what must be the industrial area of outer Bangkok. \u00a0One of the food factories actually buys shrimp from Sam’s family shrimp farm and ships to Costco in the U.S. \u00a0The factories were all different than ones in the U.S. \u00a0Most of the piping was either inside or carefully concealed and every building was painted not necessarily in bright colors, but not the standard white, grey or black that you’d see in America. \u00a0Each one also proudly proclaimed what it did, some with giant statues of company mascots and the like by the highway. \u00a0I didn’t start taking pictures until we got to Amphawa.<\/p>\n

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We ate dinner at a restaurant with a live acoustic guitar band that took requests from the audience. \u00a0The singer did his best with the songs but the Asian accent was pretty strong. \u00a0It reminded me of that scene in A Christmas Story. \u00a0You know which one. \u00a0At one point he sang \u00a0Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, but it came out\u00a0“Oh Buddy Oh Bruddah – \u00a0Life Goes On Bra!” \u00a0I think from the last part being “brah” maybe he assumed the first two parts were “buddy” and “brother.” \u00a0Such is the charm of a night out in Thailand.<\/p>\n

Our first meal was… you guessed it, Cartman – mee krob<\/a>! \u00a0Which Cartman is totally misinformed about by the way as mee krob tastes a lot like caramel popcorn.<\/p>\n

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We tried to take some shots from the bridge after nightfall.<\/p>\n

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I found some cool souvenirs at one of the stands in the area on land leading to the parking lot. \u00a0Sam’s mom actually negotiated for me to get a cheaper price since she’d bought something for herself when we passed by earlier. \u00a0In fact, it is worth noting that Sam’s mom might be the most charitable person I’ve met. \u00a0Every time I’ve been around her and we see a beggar she’ll give them something, and the beggars at the floating market were no exception.<\/p>\n

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Above is a street view of Fortville, where Sam and I stayed for two nights in Bangkok. \u00a0Below are two photos of the fort down the street that it is designed after. Our only plan for the day was to visit the palace. \u00a0We were within walking distance so we walked down the street. \u00a0Across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2153"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2155,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153\/revisions\/2155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}