Grand Palace in Bangkok

Things here have been quite busy since returning from our October holiday.  We're going to blog the photos from our trip to Thailand the next couple weeks.

After meeting up with Sara and Kristina (two of Bri's high school classmate who travelled with us in Thailand) on Saturday morning we were off to the Grand Palace.  Only a portion of the palace is open to the public but it was quite interesting. Rather than a single structure, the Grand Palace is made up of numerous buildings, halls, gardens and courtyards. Its asymmetry and eclectic styles are due to its sporadic development with additions being made by successive reigning kings over 200 years of history.  The museum tour guide told us some interesting stories regarding the different buildings and shrines.  The palace isn't used for the royal family any longer but it is used for royal guests like U.S. Presidents when they visit.    

The king who build this pagoda to honor his father wanted it to be made of gold.  After deciding that the price of gold was too high he chose instead to cover the pagoda with fold covered tiles which were bought from Italy.  The tiles have gold leaf fixed to the outside and were put on by hand.

The golden tiles from Italy

I can't remember for sure but I think this building houses the Emerald Buddha.  

 Ironically the Emerald Buddha is made of jade.  The buddha is only 45 cm tall, which you'll find if you visit many temples is quite small for a Buddha.  This Buddha was taken from Cambodia during a war at sometime hundreds of years ago and for quite sometime remained hidden because the Thais were afraid someone would steel him back.  Another interesting fact is that the Emerald Buddha has clothing for each of the three seasons in Bangkok.  They're made of gold and rubies and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

More detail work.  It can be a bit numbing to see all of the detail work and then you stop and remember someone did all of this by hand and you can appreciate it.

This is the actual former residence where heads of state reside when they visit.  We were only allowed to see it through the gate.  Only a small portion of the palace is open to the public.

One of the kings wanted a banquet hall that looked like Buckingham Palace but the Thai people didn't want a western structure built on the Grand Palace grounds for symbolic reasons.  So the king built it anyways and then put a pagoda style roof on the top to give a little Thai flavor.  That is called compromise, maybe the US government should take a hint.

There are a few of these on the palace site.  They are meant to protect the Emerald Buddha. I guess once they installed these things it was safe to bring the Emerald Buddha out of hiding.

Bri and I are sporting our green and olive temple attire.  The Grand Palace has a dress code we weren't aware of so we had to cover our legs with rented garments.

 Well, that was the Grand Palace.  It was more grand than our pictures can capture.  Later we'll post the Reclining Buddha (my favorite Buddha so far), our trip to a Bangkok emergency room and of course street food in Bangkok!