A bit later up this morning, likely because of the midnight cooking noise of pots clanging at 330am, whatever the lady next door was cooking smelt awesome but it took her a good couple of hours and made the cats start scrapping too. Following this the first call to prayer is at 530am and all the dogs howl at the call, just like Baxter does to landline phones!
The grand palace was on the list for today, we walked up the main road and grabbed a banana and mango smootie for breakfast from a street vendor, I was nervous about food from these places but there’s not much more choice!! We got to the palace, what we thought was appropriately dressed but they were so strict and made David buy a pair of long pants to put on even though his shorts were down to his knees.
Once you were through into the palace the buildings were mind blowing with the detail and the wealth in there.
We had only just got through and security stopped everyone, asked everyone to sit where they were and you had to cross your legs, we were in the scorching heat for over 20minutes, and not allowed to move because the princess was about to walk by, no photo s were allowed and it is disrespectful to point to things with your feet, hence crossing your legs. All of a sudden a few well dressed women and children walked by and then everyone was allowed back up as normal.
The temple of the emerald Buddha is the biggest building in there and fascinating inside with embellished gold, and jewels with a small emerald green Buddha on top a pyramid of gold. Again no photos were allowed inside but even the outside was impressive
The actual palace was impressive, ornate with many guards around the perimeter
On the way out we walked back along the main roads to kao San, we noticed there were more police around than what we had seen previously but then thought nothing of it up til we walked by a carpark and the locals were desparately telling us to get behind the wall and not take photos because the king was about to drive past. Many blacked out cars went by with police cars in tow and once he had past life returned to normal. The royal family is very highly respected!
Today is the hottest day so we grabbed a bit of lunch and a drink and watched the world pass for an hour or 2.
Tomorrow morning we have a 4am rise to fly to siem reap, cambodia.
South East Asia 2019 