{"id":2526,"date":"2025-11-21T20:28:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/?p=2526"},"modified":"2025-12-16T17:20:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T01:20:53","slug":"thailand-day-2-bangkok-seein-the-sights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/?p=2526","title":{"rendered":"Thailand, Day 2: Bangkok – Seein’ the Sights"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to eating absolutely everything we possibly could, we also did have every intention of seeing some actual, you know, sights in Bangkok. Our plan for day two was to visit the big three historical sights in the city: the Grand Palace, and the temples of Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan, (of course<\/em> I cut and pasted that, what did you think?) or “Wat Pho” for short, and Wat Arun.<\/p>\n

We’ll talk about each of those in turn, but first let’s talk about breakfast.<\/p>\n

In our research for the trip, I had found some rhapsodic descriptions of a pork leg rice street food seller who was, in theory, located right outside our hotel. But it turns out they weren’t.\u00a0 So we went looking for them. Pretty sure we didn’t find them, but who cares? We found pork leg rice, and it was amazing.<\/p>\n

\"Pork<\/a><\/p>\n

Also, this was approximately 3 bucks Canadian. I will stop commenting on this fact, probably, but just to be clear – food was insanely cheap throughout the trip, even at the high end.<\/p>\n

Thus fortified, we headed for the Grand Palace. En route, we were delighted to encounter our first scammer. “Look honey! A grifter! Just like in the videos!” Specifically, this was a nice woman in a polo shirt who looked like a tourist assistance person who came up to us while we were checking our map, and asked us where we were headed.<\/p>\n

When we told her the Grand Palace, she told us that the queen mother had passed away (which was true) and that as a result, the palace would be opening late (which was not). She suggested that we take a tuk tuk over to the south side of the river and tour the temples there. And wouldn’t you know it, at just that moment, a random tuk tuk just happened to pull up and ask if we wanted a ride?<\/p>\n

We did not, having been warned about this exact scam by an incredibly Canadian Bangkok YouTuber named “Cal.”<\/a> (Thanks Cal!\u00a0 Your videos were awesome, and a great help in many ways.)<\/p>\n

So we thanked her politely and moved on to the (very much open) Grand Palace.<\/p>\n

A word about the queen mother, though – she passed away about a month before we arrived, but because the royal family occupy a quasi-divine mythology in Thailand, we were just at the start of a year of official mourning. There was black and white bunting and photos of her EVERYWHERE.<\/p>\n

\"Queen<\/a><\/p>\n

This included just about every temple we visited, which was definitely a contrast to the church-state separation we are accustomed to in the west.<\/p>\n

The tour of the Grand Palace consists of two main areas – the temple of the Emerald Buddha, and the palace itself. Most of the palace was indeed closed due to official mourning, but we were able to explore the temple.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to describe, even with pictures, the maximalist aesthetic on display here. This was a common theme of the whole trip, particularly in the temple-rich environs of Chiang Mai, but unsurprisingly, the complex attached to the royal palace is at the top of this particular heap.\u00a0 Just a few of our MANY photos:
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The one thing we CAN’T show you is a photo of the Emerald Buddha itself, since this was one of the very few temples that didn’t allow photography.<\/p>\n

From the temple, we proceeded through to the Grand Palace, but we only got a look at the outside, because mourners.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMany, many mourners. Mass mourners mobilizing for monarchal mother’s memorial.<\/p>\n

Ahem. Sorry. But the upshot was that the royal palace and the various museums associated with it were closed. So after having our picture taken by an ACTUAL tourist support person (it FELT disrespectful, but it was their idea, and all the Thai mourners were also <\/em>taking selfies), we moved on to our next stop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next stop was Wat Pho, a large temple complex just south of the palace featuring a very, very large reclining Buddha.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At this point I turned to Leigh and whispered “I like big Buddhas and I cannot lie.” Then I tripped over something and stubbed my toe, so I should probably be more respectful.<\/p>\n

And to be clear, the building housing this enormous statue is just one small part of the larger temple complex.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The second picture shows three of the four\u00a0Chedi<\/em> dedicated to the first four kings of the Rama dynasty, of which the current king is Rama the tenth.<\/p>\n

At this point, we were absolutely overwhelmed, and also it was time for lunch. Wanting to get away from the absolute tourist black hole that is the area around the palace and Wat Pho, we took a ferry up river a few stops to a smaller local market area called Wang Lang, which Google Maps helpfully describes as, “A large open air market with many snacks.”<\/p>\n

It certainly was. Sadly, we completely failed to take a PICTURE of our actual lunch (two different delicious curries). We did get a blurry photo of a pandan cake that we had for dessert, but I won’t trouble you with it here.<\/p>\n

Because we then walked to the far more photogenic THIRD of the big three sights in downtown Bangkok, the temple of Wat Arun. The walk wasn’t dangerous or anything, but it also wasn’t very INTERESTING. It was along a light industrial street with a naval yard on one side, so not much to see. Probably not on many tourist routes.<\/p>\n

The temple itself, however?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nDefinitely<\/em> on the tourist routes. Wat Arun, which literally means “Temple of Dawn”, is one of the iconic sites of Bangkok, and is prominently situated at a bend in the river so as to be visible for a long way both up and downstream.<\/p>\n

It’s absolutely stunning.<\/p>\n

It is also absolutely infested<\/em> with Instagrammers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We were tired at this point, it was hot, and we had walked a long way. So we basically just parked at a balcony and watched life’s rich pageant for a while. Life’s rich pageant consisted of many, many people in rented Thai dress, frequently accompanied by rented Thai photographers, taking just that absolutely perfect shot for the ‘gram, artfully ignoring the absolute staggering wonder of Thai architecture that they were standing right next to.<\/p>\n

I know, I know…
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It really was stupendous, though.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At any rate, after a nice long rest at this gorgeous temple, we made our way back across the river to explore a bit more of Chinatown. We walked through a number of absolutely TINY market streets that you would assume were just too small and full of people to accommodate motorcycles. But you would be wrong.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By this point we were getting tired and hungry, so we decamped to a rooftop bar for our first serving of Pad Thai of the trip, along with some pomelo salad and cocktails. But also this view.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From here, we made our way back to Yaowarat Road and really took in the absolute madness that is one of the great street food areas of the world at night. Faced with an overwhelming number of options, we opted for some nice coconut ice cream, and called it a night.<\/p>\n

But we really had no idea what an overwhelming variety of food could look like. Not yet.<\/p>\n

(Is that good foreshadowing?\u00a0 It’s supposed to be foreshadowing.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addition to eating absolutely everything we possibly could, we also did have every intention of seeing some actual, you know, sights in Bangkok. Our plan for day two was to visit the big three historical sights in the city: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2526"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2678,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions\/2678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}