Day 2

We had a very busy day on day 2. We decided to go and buy our bus tickets from the southern bus terminal to Ranong for Thursday so that we had them and knew what time the bus was etc, as we were in the area we went to the Grand Palace to see the reclining Buddha. It was pretty spectacular. The size of it was just incredible, it looks big in the pictures but nothing like what it is in real life. The room it was housed in was also very beautiful. From floor to ceiling there were paintings on the walls depicting life at the palace centuries ago, there were also many pillars which were also beautifully decorated.

The Palace grounds itself was also very impressive. Everywhere you looked there were temples and pagodas which were intricately decorated. I was quite surprised to see a strong Chinese influence in the architecture and in some of the statues, some of which did not seem very Thai at all.

After the palace we took a river boat down the river and then a tuk tuk to go and see the Golden Buddha. Again pictures did not prepare us for the real thing. The Buddha gleamed from head to toe and was stunning to look at. It is hard to believe that not so many yeas ago it was covered in concrete and no one knew it was actually solid gold underneath!!

From the Golden Buddha we went on the new underground rail system, took the sky train and did some window shopping before heading back to the hotel to relax for a short while. Though we had a bit of an incident as we decided to walk back but went in the wrong direction and after 45mins of hard walking we realised that we were miles from the hotel, so ended up in a taxi anyway! Oh well it burnt off some of the tons of food I have been eating lol :-).

The previous day we found this amazing place to eat in the MBK centre (my favorite shopping mall in the world). There are many choices of cuisine to choose from and you just pick what you want and they cook it fresh before you. We had to go back as it was so good and for about 2 pounds we had Thai green curry (the best one we have ever tasted btw) and spring rolls for starter, whilst a woman sang some English songs with a live band! Can't really get better than that. Hence we shall most likely eat there every night until we leave on Thursday.