We caught a flight back to Bangkok this morning and arrived in the city around 1pm, just in time for lunch. We were going to have street food, but Bowman, Terri, Mark and I chose an air conditioned restaurant close by. We ended up ordering pizza and it was delicious. The man sitting next to us inquired if we were Americans, and it just so happens that he lives in the same town where Terri and Mark (otherwise known as Her Man to us) grew up.

Side story…A funny and a bit scary, is that the day after Brenda fell, we were at the Joy house and she couldn’t find her small bag that contained her credit cards and passport. After searching through her room, the vans and other places, she was starting to panic. Fortunately she found it in her room. But then Mary didn’t trust her to carry it, so for the next few days Mary carried it and Brenda had to ask for money when she needed it. While at the Chiang Mai airport, Mary gave it back to her, but told all of us that if we saw her remove it, to tell Mary. We agreed to make a police siren sound if we noticed anything fishy. So when Bowman noticed her removing it we made the sound and we all laughed hysterically.

Back to Bangkok. On our drive to Bangkok, when we were getting close to the temple area we saw men on the street with bags of something for sale. I wondered what it was, when 30 seconds later, Amy ran up to our van, pounded on the window, scared Mark and handed him 2 of these bags. Cautiously curious we opened the bags to find fried bananas, still hot and quite yummy. After lunch we went to Wat Pho, the oldest and largest temple in Thailand. It is associated with King Rama I who rebuilt the temple complex on an earlier temple site, and became his main temple where some of his ashes are enshrined. The temple was later expanded and extensively renovated by Rama III. Sixteen gates surround the complex, guarded by giant statues of Chinese warriors. The temple complex houses the largest collection of Buddha images in Thailand, including a 46m long and 15m high reclining Buddha and covered with gold leaf. Nothing can prepare you for the size of this Reclining Buddha, it is just massive and the temple is adorned from ceiling to floor. There were so many people visiting, that it was difficult to get a good photo. But there was so much more to the temple then just the Buddha, the stupas were gorgeous and decorated with Chinese porcelains dishes. There were 4 of them and the blue one was modeled after the Queen Suriyothai’s stupa. She is famous for having given up her life in the defense of her husband, the King, in a battle during the Burmese–Siamese War.

In one of the buildings there were inscribed marble slabs where people could learn medicine, massage and was regarded as Thailand’s first university, or the birth place of Thai massage. We also went into the ordination hall where the main alter is a gold Buddha atop three tiers.

After Wat Pho I decided to go back to the hotel, but the others went for a long tail canal ride. It was about an hour and was similar to what we did earlier in the week. Bowman fed catfish bread and the tour was more residential, so not just the main canal. And even saw some children swimming in the dirty canal water. They drove by the museum of the royal barges. They took the Sky Train back to the hotel.

For dinner we went to Baiyoke Sky Tower buffet which was on the 78th floor and the second tallest building in Bangkok. There was a spectacular view of the city. The tallest building is actually right near our hotel and we call it the rubric cube building. We made our way up to the the revolving rooftop observation deck on 84th floor is a bit too windy, but we were all glad we did it.

Only 13 of us went to dinner, we said goodbye to Gary, Laurie, and Bob, and will get 6 new travel companions tomorrow.