Temples

Today's plan was to visit two temples and the Thai Red Cross Snake Farm.  In this post is a little about the temples; the snakes will follow in a separate post.  At 8:30, we left the hotel and walked for 15 minutes to the Saphan Kwai skytrain station and took the skytrain to the Chao Phraya River, got on a river taxi, and cruised north to Pier #9, then walked 15 minutes to the gates of the Grand Palace.  We spent an hour walking through the Grand Palace (10:30-11:30), then walked 20 minutes to Wat Pho, which is famous for it's enormous reclining buddha.  After our Wat Pho visit, we retraced our steps and cruised south on the river taxi to the Saphan Thaksin skytrain station and took the skytrain to the Sala Daeng station, from which we walked for another 20-25 minutes to the Snake Farm.  We did a lot of walking today (~25,000 steps on the students' fitbit), but that is by design after being immobile for so long on airplanes the past two days.

By the way, the delayed baggage was delivered to us tonight.  We are whole again :-)

On the skytrain are (L-R) Hally, Anna, Jess, Carley, Becca, and Olivia.

Carley, Anna, and Maggie.

On the river taxi sitting next to the captain are Carlie, Kelly, and Dana.

Here's our annual customary group shot a the Grand Palace.  By the way, it's 82 degrees, bright and sunny :-)

Kelly and Jake taking their shoes off before entering the palace that houses the famous Emerald Buddha.

According to reliable chronicles, lightning struck a chedi in a temple in northern Thailand in 1434 A.D. and a Buddha statue made of stucco was found inside. The abbot of the temple noticed that the stucco on the nose had flaked off and the image inside was a green color. He then removed the stucco covering and found the Emerald Buddha, which is in reality made of one solid piece of jade.   This is the most revered Buddha image in all of Thailand.  Only the King is allowed to touch the Emerald Buddha.

Jess, Carley, and Anna enjoying the Grand Palace.

Here's another obligatory photo:  our students imitating the stance of the demons holding up the chedi. Kyler, Jake, Jess, Anna, Kelly, Dana, Olivia, and Carley (in the shadow).

Here are Olivia and Jake taking a selfie with an armed Palace guard.  Sigh...

Now we're at Wat Pho, famous for its Reclining Buddha.  It's roughly 150 long and completely covered with gold leaf, except for the underside of the feet, which is made from mother of pearl.

There are 108 bronze bowls in the corridor representing the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha. Visitors can drop coins in these bowls as it is believed to bring good fortune.  It certainly brought good fortune to Maggie (pictured here) because for dinner she had larb moo sup with sticky rice from the best larb restaurant in Bangkok.