Got to get to the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha, today. That is pretty much our goal. We took the Sky Train to the river boat, again, and made our way up the river to the palace. One thing I wasn't expecting would be the shear number of 7-Elevens in Bangkok. They are everywhere. We stopped for breakfast: bottled water, red bull and yogurt. I'm constantly freaking out about what kind of food would be good/bad/indifferent. The doctor said no watery fruits like melons, so I bought strawberry yogurt. Not bad. The red bull is fantastic here! It is not carbonated, and tastes like really good cough syrup. Yum!
We walked to the Palace. Huge place. Our first stop was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The Emerald Buddha was carved from a piece of jade in the 1400s and made its way between Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang before being settled in the Grand Palace in the late 1700s. Although small (about 45 cm), it is beautiful and evokes deep reverence from the local population. While sitting in the temple, taking in the surroundings, I get a tap on the back. 'Excuse me,' a guy in his 40s with a German accent says, 'is that the Lowepro slingback camera bag? It looks great!' Leave it to me to find a German in an amazing temple who wants to talk about camera equipment.
The Grand Palace is a large complex of various buildings. The grounds were amazing, bright colors, flags, parks, what you would expect from a palace.
After, we booked it back to the hotel so we wouldn't miss check-out. Actually, we got there an hour early since my watch was still on Hong Kong time. We showered and changed (it's so humid here, I need to shower like 3 times a day) and then made our way to the train station. When we got out of the subway, there was a massive thunder storm. Robin and I are good at just missing the storms. Same thing happened in Rome three years ago when we got to Campo de' Fiori. So we had dinner at Anna's Kitchen, very good Thai food, and each had a big Singha beer, and waited for the night train to Chiang Mai. It's a sleeper train where the bottom chairs fold our into one bed and there is a ceiling compartment for the second bed. We both slept fairly well on the train, good times. And after 12.5 hours, we're in Chiang Mai.
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