A 9 hour flight to Bangkok went incredibly quickly – the kids are becoming seasoned fliers and do well even on these long flights.

After a night at the Holiday Inn (a very nice hotel we got through Priceline) we went to one of the major attractions in Bangkok – The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, home of the famous “Emerald Buddha”
The complex is huge and located in the older part of Bangkok. Every part of the Wat was ornately decorated.

And the scale was epic:

But even with tourists on all sides it still managed to retain holy and even serene corners:

The Emerald Buddhas was particularly striking (sorry, no photos allowed). Housed inside a huge building and sitting atop an enormous and ornate altar it is the most holy relic to Buddha in Thailand.

The walls of the temple are adorned with picture stories of the life of Buddha:
(this photo is from outside the temple)

We sat solemnly in front of the Emerald Buddha admiring the beauty of the temple and observing the effect on the worshippers present. It was a powerful place and even the kids enjoyed the visit.
The grand palace is in the same complex – it is the palace of hte king of Thailand. They were changing the guard when we arrived [4010] which the kids watched with great interest:

Next we were scheduled to go across the river to meet with our friend Miss Jean at Wa Run. Ms. Jean was Anna’s Parent/Child teacher back in Portland several years back and she is now living in Bangkok teaching English. Wat Arun is another famous temple in Bangkok but to get there we had to take our first Tuk-tuk ride.

Tuk-tuk’s are found in every city in Thailand – they are 3 wheeled motor bikes with room for passengers in back. They are called tuk-tuk’s for the sound their two-stroke engines make. Going from a first world country where we had a large, safe car with seat belts, air bags and a car seat for Anna to being piled in the back of an open air 3 wheeled motor cycle piloted through hair raising traffic was quite a transition. We survived our first ride and are now quite comfortable jumping into a tuk-tuk for a ride around town.
to get across the river we also had to take a ferry, but they were only running every 30 minutes because of a national holiday (they normally run every five minutes). We were approached by the captain of a “long tail boat” who wanted to take us across the river for 400 baht ($12 US) – a ridiculous amount for a five minute ride that would cost 5 baht per head on the ferry. This was our first experience with haggling. We decided to wait for ht ferry and the long tail boat captain steadily lowered his price down to 200 baht, but we still refused. Eventually he decided that he needed to go across the river anyways and he offered us a ride for free, which we accepted (although we did tip him once we got across).
Long tail boats are long and thin with a massive V8 engine attached to a long drive shaft (the “long tail”) with a propeller on the end. The driver steers by using a lever on the other end that moves the moter and drive shaft on a pivot. They can go very fast, but this with little need for speed.

On the other side we arrived at Wat Arun (in the background in the photo above) – another famous Bangkok temple. We met Miss Jean and her friend Melissa to tour the temple. It was an amazing contrast to Wa Phra Kaew – Wat Arun is large but entirely decorate with broken pieces of china. The interior of the Temple is not accessible.

After the temple we went back across the river on a ferry and had lunch on the street – $5 to feed the whole family with delicious Thai soups and fried bananas or mango sticky rice for dessert.
The next day we were off to Chiang Mai, about 400 miles north of Bangkok. A day or two in Bangkok can tire the most seasoned traveller and we were ready for a move to the country.