Bangkok, Thailand

We made a good decision canceling our ship’s tour to see Bangkok on our own and booking the Highlights of Bangkok tour. The elevated seating and huge windows of the bus provided a perfect view of the sights as we passed them on our 90-minute ride to the city. Included on our route were Chinatown, The Golden Buddha temple and the Flower Market, where people were buying marigolds, lotus blossoms, roses and other flowers to use as offerings at temples and shrines. We passed such areas on foot in other ports and know the delightful smell of the blossoms.

After the bus ride, we walked through the Grand Palace grounds after making sure that everyone was properly attired with pants to the ankle and no revealing tops. The tour company provides sarongs and pull-on trousers for anyone who is not properly covered. Since the ship had said that only knees had to be covered, many people had to wear sarongs and the guide kept changing his mind about my Capri pants. The Grand Palace is a breath-taking complex of buildings, monuments and temples over several acres set on the river.

One side of the complex is anchored by the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. We removed our shoes and walked through the Temple and saw the 30-inch tall Buddha made from a single piece of jade.

Neither words nor photos can convey the intricacies of the designs or the abundance of gold throughout the complex. It is one of those places that just has to be experienced.

We left there and walked to a pier where we boarded a long boat for a cruise up and down the Chao Phraya River, part of the reason that Bangkok is called the “Venice of the East.” As we left he Palace, the skies turned black, and we heard roars of thunder, certain we would get drenched. But we were lucky and had no rain. We past hundreds of homes built on stilts lining the river banks. We stopped at a temple where the catfish are sacred and cannot be fished, so hundreds of catfish come up to the boat to be fed pieces of bread. Then we went to the beautiful hotel for an outstanding Thai buffet lunch. There we were told that we had missed 60-mile an hour winds and driving rain in a thunderstorm. Lucky us to have been at the Palace before the rain and the hotel after the storm.

We rode back on the bus to the ship, happy to have such a pleasant experience and memories of Bangkok.