Ying's in Bangkok, Thailand

This was our vacation for the kid's spring break from school.  It turns out that this week is a great week to get away since only the international schools have the week off.  We decided to do 2 nights in Bangkok (big city), 2 nights in Chiangmai (mountain/jungle) and 4 days in Phuket (beach).  It was a great way to see a bunch of Thailand.  It was a bit expensive on the tickets but all the flights were good and luckily there were no mishaps (like our flight disappearing into the Indian ocean).

This first blog of four is about our time in Bangkok.  We stayed at the JW Marriott, ate Thai food (duhh), took the metro to a water taxi tour and then saw a bunch of big Buddha temples.  It was overall just an okay stop on our Thai tour.  But we had to do it to say, "One night in Bangkok and the ...."

It was almost my Birthday but this cake was delicious.

Executive Suite at the JW, not too bad!

This was the closest metro stop.

We took the metro to the water taxi stop.  These were the
boats that we took to get to the temples.  About $35 for an hour.

We had the whole boat to ourselves.

It was nice being in the warmth!

The captain had a large motor the rotated a prop on a long pole.

I liked this shot of a guy sitting in his house on the canal.

A reclining Buddha place.  One of many smaller temples.

Angar Wat replica in Bangkok, who would have thunk it.

This was an impressive, big, reclining Buddha.  It was about
50 meter long and 25 meter high.  

Mother-of-pearl inlay on the reclining buddha's feet.

So I learned that these Buddha statues are where the ashes
are stored for family members.  It would similar to a western grave.

If you were a king you got a large shrine in your honor.

The family in front of a bunch of tall, idol thingees.   

The token ta-ta ride.  It was about $2 to go our 2 km to the next temple...

The grand palace area.  These were more
temples around the grand palace.

The temples up close.

Some ladies fixing the tiles, slowly....

Some beautiful painting on the walls.  Many hundreds of feet
of these pictures.

This is the grand palace.  It was impressive but you couldn't go in.

The parade of guards flowing through the gate.

It was quite hot on these two days so we would go back and swim in the JW pool.  It was a a good way to transition into our vacation.