World's Apart - Grand Palace and Thornburi Canals

Paul and George posing with one of the many statues.
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Firstly I must apologise for our lack of blogging recently. We've been very busy as you'll see, and it is hard to drag yourself off the beach when you do want to chillax. But we have decided that we will all post at least one blog today or tomorrow for you to keep up-to-date with our activites. So here's mine...

Our last day in Bangkok saw us explore the Grand Palace and the canals of Thornburi, the old capital and now one of the poorest districts in Bangkok. A complete contrast in all ways.

Posted by George

Natalie and Ad outside the Palace
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After checking out of our hotel, we left our bags and headed to the Grand Palace. I don't think any of us were expecting the splendor and grandeur of the place to be so vast. There are many buildings within the Palace walls. The grounds are filled with Wats (temples), splendid buildings, yards and yards of tapestries and of course the Palace itself. There are over a hundred buildings to see before you get to the actual Palace. These building are decorated in large amount of wonderful colours using different jewels and materials. Some of the statues of Buddha's are quite fascinating and it's hard not to note the amazing attention to detail. We spent some time getting many photos (some of Paul posing with random tourist groups, some of the building's themselves) as there were so many different places to see.

On a longboat through Thornburi
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After the Palace, Adam needed to rest his foot (poor thing!!) so we decided to 'hop' on to a longboat and explore the canals. This turned out to be an amazing contrast to the Palace. The region of Thornburi used to be the capital and the canals are the main ways that tourists choose to explore it. We saw some typical Thai housing built on stilts over the canal. These houses are very sub-standard and it really brings you down to Earth after the might of the temple. The 2 are 15 minutes apart by foot and boat. On this ride, we saw the floating market - boats double up as market stalls offering a vast array of gifts (and even beers for Paul!). Though none of us bought anything, we really got a feel for the level that most of the people in the districts of Bangkok live at.

We moved on to Koh Tao after this. Another contrast, this time compared with the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. Koh Tao is a beautiful island, peaceful and calm, with some amazing scenery. But that’s for another blog.