The Grand Palace, Phra Nakon and the reclining Buddah

After the rose garden our van drove us to the grand palace.  Once again it cost about $40 to get in and get a tour guide.  We didn’t care to have a tour guide, but the van drivers set it all up. He was going to take us a couple other places too so we decided it was fine and just went with it.  Our guide took us around the grand palace and shared bits of history and information.  We saw the famous Jade Buddha.  A heavy down pour hit right about then so we stayed near the Jade Buddha for a few minutes then got walked over to a large mural on the wall.  We listened as our guide told us the history of Thailand through the painting.   We spent about an hour walking around learning about the history.  Abby was really hoping that we could catch a glimpse of the king, but he wasn't anywhere to be found.  Turns out he doesn't even live at the grand palace any more.

You aren't permitted to take pictures in the room with the jade Buddah, but this is from outside.  I was surprised by the size.  I though that it would be bigger.

Palace guard 

Our tour guide

Next we headed by boat to Phra Nakon.  There is a replica of Cambodian Angkor Wat.

We didn’t stay there long as we told our guide that we’d like to see the reclining Buddha and it was close to closing time.  As we were heading to the reclining Buddha the driver said, “Look! An alligator!”  He then pulled over and we watched.  It was NOT an alligator, but a monitor lizard.  That is basically a non-venomous Komodo dragon (which happen to be one of my least favorite things on this planet).  It was swimming through the water then we watched as he climbed out of the water and onto the rocky shore with this his nasty, sharp, long claws.  It was really horrible.  The good news is that he wasn't a Komodo dragon.  We headed on our way and got to Wat Pho to see the reclining Buddha.  Our guide paid the entrance fee with the money we’d paid him earlier.  We also each got a free bottle of water with our ticket!  The reclining Buddha was inside a building and took up basically all the room inside.  It was close to the length of a swimming pool!  We couldn't even get a picture with the whole thing because it was so big!  He was laying on his side.  The bottoms of his feet were made of mother of pearl.