Wesak in Bangkok

Day 5. Of Wesak and royalties.

We decided to walk to the Golden Palace since it takes only about 15 minutes from Khao San. No sleeves, ¾ pants, shorts, see through clothes are allowed, and if you do get stopped, you can actually loan the Sarung (Women), pants (Men) and shirts with your driver’s license, ID or 100 baht as deposit. A few sections of the compound were closed to welcome the arrival of the Princess, there were so many people around the Emerald Temple because there is where the Princess (noon) and Prince (evening) would be offering their prayers.

Is what u can see in Bangkok when we walk along the streets. They used cds to decorate arches like these, give that shiny effect!

As we were talking, this lady overhead us speaking in mandarin, she asked us “Are you from Taiwan?” To cut a long story short, she’s a Thai working in Taiwan for 11 years, and she took care of us while we joined the huge crowd awaiting the Princess’ arrival. She translated everything the guards and people around said, and even told me stories about the royal family’s history and broken marriages.

We were all ready and patiently waiting for the Princess’ arrival 2 hours before. No cameras, no sunglasses, no hats and no laurels for the Princess were allowed. But being the Paparazzi that he is, he managed to get a picture of the guards waiting in line and crowd, and then the guards noticed because some kaypoh aunties were telling the guards they heard the shutter sound, after we laughed at one of them when they were told off by the guards.

One of the entrances.

The Hor Phra Rajphongsanusorn.

The Phra Siratana Chedi - is at The Upper Terrace- four main monuments can be found on this terrace.

The scale model of the ancient city of Angkor Wat.

Next one will be The Phra Mondop.

The Grand Palace complex was established in 1782. Located on your way out to the exit.

After Golden Palace, we walked back to out guest house and this time, the road were closed, barriers were put up, guards, police were around the temple near our guest house. We also sibuk, went into the temple should have left when we got the chance. Because we were all asked to sit quietly 2 – 3 hours before the Queen’s arrival! Her scheduled arrival was at 6pm and the Royal Highness came on the dot!

It was rather a sad last day because we have yet to explore other parts of Bangkok and its rich culture. It's a tiring day and we had to end our day earlier than usual because of our early flight the next day.