Had a bit of an issue uploading the next batch of pics, but finally got some up!
Took LOTS of pictures on day two, so I’ll have to break this up.
So we pretty much got up and went! I’d read that the Marble Temple area has some nice stuff around it, and it looked like a 15-20 min walk from our hostel, so we thought that sounded good and I’d printed out this page as a really general guide.
Part one!
These two pics were taken standing in the same spot, just facing a different direction!
After we crossed the bridge there was like a mini market, lots of delicious fruit!
I don’t know what this fruit is, and because we were going to be out all day we didn’t want to get fruit just yet. But sadly, I never saw this particular one again!
I think this is durian? I get durian and jack fruit confused, since they’re both spikey 8D
After the mini market thing, there were random stalls of street food!
We got this fried dough thing, it was three different things which I somehow managed to not take a picture of! One was tofu, one was dumpling like- crispy on the outside and squishy on the inside, and one was like mini globs of tiny noodles. The little bag Jey is holding is a dipping sauce, for other people they dump the sauce in the bag of doughy things and shake it up, but since we didn’t know what it was we went the dipping route! It was like a slightly spicy, peanuty, sweet & sour sauce. I really liked!
And then E & I both got a banana thing.
Grilled banana!
I really wasn’t sure how to eat it…
I ended up cutting it with my skewer and eating it in chunks.
E also got a grilled banana thing, but her’s was grilled after peeling, and cut up in pieces, so sort of crunch on the outside.
I LOVE their bananas!
Mmmm.
So we kept walking, and came across this display of the royal family.
Most of those flowers at the base were actually fake, but I think the ones on the elephant were real!
More royal couple!
They LOVE their royal family!
This is the Equestrian Statue of King Rama V.
(As an aside, I took clothes with me that I didn’t care too much about, in case I had to throw them away to make room for fabric goodies, and now that I’m looking at pics… this shirt is not flattering @.@)
Anyway, so then we deviated from the suggested course because we wanted to know what the building in the background was, it turned out to be Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall. We saw a Chinese tour group hanging out by the gate, which made us curious, and then we found it would open in 15 min. So we decided to hang about and see what we could see!
It turned out to house exhibitions of national artists, as well as rotating (I think?) showcases of student work from the Chitralada Vocational Centre.
We couldn’t take any pictures inside, sadly. In fact, we had to leave everything in lockers and go through metal detectors and such. My sister couldn’t even take her itouch, despite it having no camera!
ALSO, as royal property, there was a dress code!
No tank tops for guys or girls, no shorts, and girls had to wear skirts!
I’m not really sure what the dress code is for though, since it wasn’t that we had to look nice and presentable, since E & I were allowed to just tie our scarves around our waists, over our trousers. And it certainly did not look “nice.” Poor Jey was forced to buy a wrap or they wouldn’t let her in! And it was ugly :/
So as I understand it, a lot of Thai traditional arts were being lost as people just weren’t supporting them/learning them anymore. The Queen created this school for the sole purpose of teaching these traditional arts. As such, everything in this museum was actually pretty new, and most of it was created for various recent anniversaries of the king or queen.
Also everything was EXTREMELY blingy. We got a little bling over-load!
My favourite things were the traditional silk embroidery, anything with beetle wings worked in (which was actually, quite a lot), and this massive double sided carving of the legend of Rama. I wish I could think how to describe it!
Well after that, we walked through the garden and continued on to the Marble Temple!
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