Our Great Adventure: Bangkok Day 84 11/12/2014

We finally reached Bangkok just after 7am, consoled that we hopefully didn't look as rough as our Irish friend, and jumped into a taxi to head to our hotel, the Narai in the Silom district. Despite their reputation the taxis were all well managed by the station police and so we werent overcharged. We checked in and were lucky in that our room was available (at no extra cost unlike the An An in HCMC). After a quick shower we headed out for breakfast. We didn't find anywhere near the hotel so jumped on the MTR (skyway) and headed towards the river and backpacking area. After a healthy fry up we decided to get the river boat down the Chao Phraya River. There are three classes of boat, express, local and tourist and we opted for tourist which gives the flexibility to hop on/hop off at the various piers. The river is extremely busy primarily with tourist boats but also ferries and there is still some cargo shipped up and down. We got off at Tha Tien Pier and crossed the river by ferry to visit Wat Arun, named after the Indian god of dawn. It's a very imposing 82m high Khmer style stupa covered in a mosaic of tiles left behind by Chinese merchant ships. The Emerald Buddha has previously been housed in the temple nearby before being moved across the river to Wat Phra Kaew. After refreshments (the weather is extremely hot (35C+) and quite debilitating) we crossed back over the river to visit Wat Pho, the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok. It houses the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand at 46m long and 15 m high, finished in gold leaf and depicting the passing of Buddha into final nirvana. The surrounding temples are also very impressive and the complex houses the national headquarters for the teaching and preservation of traditional Thai medicine. From here we got back on the boat and went to Phra Arthit Pier before returning to Central Pier where we had initially boarded. We walked back in search of somewhere for late lunch and had nearly reached the hotel before we found a small cafe. Simon was in his element with Earl Grey tea and Worcester sauce to add to his club sandwich! We took advantage of the hotel pool and after a quick dip had an hour or so relaxing in the late afternoon sun. In the evening we walked back towards the river and had dinner at a small restaurant run by a Londoner and his Thai family. It was very tasty but suspect Simon might be regretting the spicy red curry he had in the night!!