Wat Pho Tour, Attempt at Golden Mount, King's Ride, Flower Market and trying to use a selfie stick

Armed with my elephant pants and new shawl thing for my shoulders, my German roomie and I headed out to the Wat Pho - home of the reclining Buddha temple. Entry was only 100B (Baht) - not even $4.00USD. It was HOT and humid and sunny and while I had been drinking a ton of water so far, I was happy to see them handing out cold water at the start. We walked into kind of a history museum of the place - but first had to remove our shoes.

Let me sidetrack about feet for a minute. I have this THING about my feet. I hate having my feet touch things (outside of my house) - like I have to wear shoes in water - even if its a lake up north and I can see the bottom. I have always had this idea that something is going to a) bite my toe off b) puncture my foot skin and that hurts or c) attach itself to my foot - ala leeches. I don't know where the issue came from or how it started, but its a thing. Same goes for bare feet on public floors. I think its from back in the day when gym class required we were shower shoes 'so we wouldn't contract or spread foot warts' kind of thing, again, I don't know. But the idea of removing my shoes to walk into a room that EVERYONE else is walking into freaks me out. Kind of a lot. I mean, I did it, but the whole time, I admit I was distracted by the bare foot thing. And super happy to put my shoes back on. Anyways - I digress.

After wandering around the building in the heat and scoping out historical facts that were not in English, we walked to the end of the building and there were a lot of people lighting incense type sticks and placing them into the bins. I don't know what that is about, but it looked very calm, peaceful, and important to folks. Note to self - something else to look up when I get back to the hostel.

Next we headed into the courtyards - the structures here are impressive on their own. The colors, the architecture, the effort people have put into building these temples is truly impressive. It is hard to soak it all in and hard to believe that I am here to see it all.

Another side note - my mother is adorable. She is a true foodie at heart. Every time I go back home, she sends me home with some sort of treat or goodie, and if she doesn't have a chance to 'whip something up' because I show up unannounced, she feels genuinely awful. So, for Thanksgiving when I was back home, she sent me home with cookies. Now, whenever I travel I always think of getting my parents a little token of appreciation - but never really know what. I try to send postcards as they appreciate this and every time they go somewhere, my mom sends me a postcard. So after getting the cookies, I decided to save a few and bring them to Thailand. I could take pictures with them in Bangkok and my mom would love it. Suffice to say, I brought 5.... but only 2 remained at the time of photos... lol

We walked around for a couple of hours or so - taking in the sights and sounds and colors. We didn't see a map when we got there so naturally we were all lost and backed around, but it didn't matter - we have no time frame to be on. We made it through what we thought was all of the temple. Turns out, a day after the fact, I read about the temple and we missed THE main point of it. The reclining Buddha. Oops. Still very cool

The pictures just don't do it justice

Me and my hostel roomie

Note the cat soaking up the (should be) sun

From the Wat Pho, we headed to the Flower Market - which was also semi-closed for the King, but there was still a very impressive display of flowers everywhere we turned.

Flower leis - all hand made - 40B

Pretty quiet market

And then we turned and there were hundreds and hundreds of people in yellow shirts - presumably volunteers for the King's ride event - and hundreds of Law Enforcement officials, military guards, and the like. That along with no traffic was a sight to see.

We Continued our walk towards the Golden Mount. The highest temple in Bangkok which offers amazing sights of the city. There were a lot of great sights along our way -

Me trying to figure out how to use a selfie stick - and successfully taking 179 photos similar to this one

We made it to Golden Mount... and there was this thick muddy water flowing down the temple stairs like crazy - I didn't want to know what the water was or where it was from, but meanwhile there was a couple of kids jumping in it... ew.. needless to say, my lucky day! Golden Mount Temple was CLOSED.

Onward -