Today was a busy day exploring the big city of Bangkok. We started out the day making our way to the Royal Palace. We first had to navigate the SkyTrain, one of Bangkok's public transportation trains as we made our way there. It was quite easy and very clean. We had one transfer to get going in the right direction, and then it dropped us off right by the boat docks. Here we bought our ticket for the Chao Phraya Tourist shuttle. It's a series of river taxis that take people from place to place along the river. Since the traffic in Bangkok is so bad, the river taxis are often more efficient than getting a taxi directly to where you want to go. When we got our tickets a boat was just about to leave, so we jumped on board. It was very interesting to travel along the river. There were luxury high rise condominiums and hotels right next to very poor looking shacks along the river. There were a lot of different kinds of boats too. We saw longtail boats like those that we saw in Railay Beach, taxi boats, barges, and various other kinds of boats. It was interesting and the cool breeze helped us survive the hot day!

At the Royal Palace it was extremely hot and they have a dress code that you must wear long pants, so that didn't help with the heat either. Once we passed the dress code inspection we entered the temple area. It was very impressive, everything is plated in either gold leafing or colorful glass and mirrors. There was a free English guided tour that started about 30 minutes after we entered so we signed up and explored a bit on our own before it started. The tour guide's nickname was Jeffrey and he was very funny. He explained all the different temples, rituals, and information about the King of Thailand. King Rama IX has been king for over 60 years, the longest reign of any Thai king. He is too old to do some of the traditions, so now his son is taking over. For example, there is an Emerald Buddha (actually made of a solid jade stone) which undergoes a wardrobe change for each season (winter, summer and rainy) and this is a task performed by the king. Now that he is too old to climb the ladder to perform this task his son does it.

After walking around the temple and Royal Palace for a little over 2 hours, we headed back to the hotel to cool off. We sat by the pool and relaxed and read our books for a bit. Then we got dressed and took advantage of the free appetizers and drinks in the Renaissance Executive Lounge before we headed off to sit ringside at Lumpini Muay Thai Boxing. What an event! Most of the tourists sit ringside and the locals sit in the second and third tiers. There is a very large discrepancy on price for foreigners versus locals, but we knew we would only have one chance. The fights were quite interesting, we learned quickly that the first round was typically boring and the fighters were just feeling each other out. Typically round 4 (out of 5) was the most exciting. Equally as exciting was that the locals in the stands were extremely rowdy and doing a lot of betting during the fights. It looked very similar to the stock trading floor in NYC with a lot of yelling and hand signals in between rounds. All the fights were red versus blue, so Kevin and I chose our school colors to make it interesting. We were 2-1 (with me in the lead) when we decided to switch for one round where there was a boy from France on the red team. I decided I wanted to cheer for the local and luckily I won. Surprisingly the locals in the stands were cheering for the Frenchman! During the main event we saw a knockout in round 2, so that was exciting too!

Finally we grabbed a taxi and headed to a night market to spend the Baht that we had left over from our trip. We found a couple of things quickly and then headed back to our hotel around 11:30. After packing up and getting ready for our 5:50am flight we only slept for a few hours! It was a long but exciting day of exploring the city and we are now excited to come home!

Keely