19 May

Up later than we anticipated, we headed to the busstop to go to the Grand palace and emerald Buddha Temple. Paying an excessive fee we gained access to the jewel of Bangkok. The Palace built by King Rama 1 in 1782 houses the royal residence, government buildings and a variety of temples and shrines. It covers an area of 218 000 m squared and is enclosed by four walls 1900 m in length. The temples are decorated with mother of pearl, paintings along the walls describing the history and statues representing the guardians of the palace littering the grounds.

The emerald Buddha was next, first discovered in 1434 in a stupa in Chang Rai by a monk who thought it to be an ordinary Buddha due to it being covered with plaster. Later a monk discovered it had been carved from a block of green jade when the clay started pealing off the nose. The emerald Buddha is clad with one of three seasonal costumes being summer, rainy season and winter which are changed three times a year in a ceremony presided over by the King of Thailand. The Buddha is much smaller than we thought.

From here we visited the royal war weapons and coins museum before leaving the palace and heading to the day market for a quick snack before taking a water taxi to Wat Arun, a lofty temple with very steep steps and Wat Pow, housing the reclining Buddha almost 45m in length decorated with goldleaf and mother of pearl feet/heals. Now 18h00 we waited almost 50 minutes to catch a bus to MBK to get those last minute things we were unable to buy the day before.

After this we retuned home walking through Khao San again, we really have no choice - the way home leads through it! Finally home at almost 23h00 we received our attire delivered by the tailor. Unfortunately all was not so well, presuming they decided not to make the adjustments because they were aware of our early morning departure at 09h30 taking into account they only open at 09h30. With the help of the receptionist I tried in vain to contact them with no success.

Having only one option I contacted Nok and asked whether there was a mini bus departing later in the day which we could be moved to but unfortunately there was not. At least we could get a 50% refund of 200 Baht. Nok had informed us earlier that no busses went from the city to the bus station and that we would have to take a taxi which when added up comes to close the mini bus price, the receptionist at our guest house however assured me that there was a bus going to the terminal - I hate the fact that in Thailand everyone's story is different all the time! This is however our new plan so I hope it works out.