Then we had lunch at a cafe. I just love the interior of the cafes and restaurants in Thailand. They have very good taste. I especially love the furniture they use. Maybe I should try to bring some back on my next trip?
We had to say good bye to Isabel after lunch as she had to get the kids from school. Kylie and I decided to wander and walk to the nearest train station. The area we had our massage and lunch is almost like "Little Japan". Lots of Japanese eateries and shops targeted for Japanese. Obviously this is the area Japanese people tend to live. We even found an Onsen - the public bath.
Looks like the countryside of Japan...
Out of all the tourist destinations we decided to go and visit the Grand Palace. The only problem was we spent too long in a shopping mall looking for a hat for Kylie. It was supposed to be a 10min stop but ended up 2 hours... By the time we managed to get out of the mall it was too late for the Grand Palace visit, the taxi driver told us it was already closed at 4pm! But they suggested we go and visit Wat Pho, a Buddhist temple complex with a giant reclining Buddha.
It was certainly the wrong time to travel. Friday traffic was hideous - the tuktuk took forever to get there. It was kind of interesting, we got to see lots of the local parts of Bangkok from a very slow moving vehicle...
We made it there before it closed! We still had over an hour to spend inside the complex.
The main attraction, the reclining Buddha. She was huge and very shiny.
We were more overwhelmed by the artworks that were on the interior of this building. They were just amazing.
Wat Pho is one of the temples that is classed as the highest grade of the first class royal temple. It is also well known as the birthplace of traditional Thai massage which is still taught and practiced at the temple. Hence the sign post. I thought it was really strange to have a massage place within the temple...
It must have been the time of the day we visited, there was hardly anyone there. It made it extra peaceful and zen to be in the temple complex.
I knew where to take Kylie for dinner from there. The previous trip to Bangkok came very handy. Peter and Isabel took us there to see a Muay Thai show last time. We arrived in "Asiatique" without any trouble by boat.
Before we had dinner we had a good look around the place. The place is full of clothing and craft shops. Kylie was very happy and bought lots of cheap clothes. Me? Still nothing.
There are so many restaurants and bars in this place too. We picked this Thai restaurant by the river as the place was packed - must be a good sign right? And we were right! The service was excellent and the food was divine. I will definitely go back there when I next visit. We need a bigger group of people to try more than a couple of dishes though!
To get home we had the choice of 1) boat + train 2) taxi or 3) Tuk Tuk. Both the boat and taxi queues were crazy long so we got on this Tuk Tuk. We weren't 100% sure as it was past 11pm, the distance to the hotel was fairly long but we wanted to get back. He went crazy crazy crazy fast!!!!
Somehow we arrived at the hotel in one piece and it only took us 10min drive plus 5min waiting at the traffic lights. Looking at where we travelled on the map it was certainly super-dooper fast!!! Once back in the hotel room Kylie and I had to open a bottle of red wine to celebrate our crazy experience to finish up our busy day. This will be the night we will be talking about in 10 years time for sure!
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