August 4 Royal Thai Palace

Today we toured the Royal Palace and Wat Po. The palace is opulent, huge and ornate and largely unused other than for ceremonies a couple of times per year. Our guide took us through many of the King’s ceremonial rooms for coronations, prayer, dining and hosting foreign guests. Compared to the modest palaces of Vietnam, these were 100s times more elaborate. Of particular note was the Emerald Buddha Temple (which actually houses a jade Buddha) and the large number of solid gold artifacts. Next door to the palace, we also toured the Wat Po with the largest reclining Buddha.

En route to Wat Po, we encountered many private tour guides who told us that the Wat Po was closed ‘til 3 p.m. As we later found out, this was not the case at all, but simply a ploy by the shysters to try to get you to sign them up for a tour by tuk-tuk for a couple of hours! Luckily we didn’t fall for it. After Wat Po, we went to the Khao San neighbourhood for more street shopping and lunch.

Not yet being shopped-out, we went to MBK for 6 floors of city-block-size mix of market and traditional mall shopping. The boys and Deb loved it and Joe enjoyed watching the them act like kids in a candy-store buying a few outfits and electronics. Most impressive were their ipod touch minis. Unfortunately for Joe, while refuelling the cash-supply at the local ATM, the machine ate his card. A quick call by the bank’s manager to central command arranged for the machine to be opened to retrieve the card. One problem – it would have to be done tomorrow! Neither the kids nor Deb seemed to mind, as it ensured a return trip to the mega-mall!

Back at our hotel, the FX, we enjoyed their current pools (small pools with jets creating a current against which we swam). It was a lot more fun than we expected - and a lot more work!