Bangkok - Canal cruise and Wat Po

The night before at the restaurant we had agreed to a canal cruise of Bangkok and so we rose  for breakfast at 8ish. It must be said that we did not miss much the previous morning, the free breakfast was free for a reason. The Thai food was okay, but the rest was not great, my coffee actually tasted (and smelled) of advocaat; very weird.

We had a nice walk from the hotel through Chinatown and down to the river. We jumped on board a little junk style boat and the driver wasted no time in opening the throttle and driving us along the river at what felt like a million knots an hour!



It was a great way to see Bangkok though, and the river traffic was full of fellow tourists on the canal tour. The river was heavily polluted and we did our best not to swallow any of the water as it splashed in our faces.

We saw some lovely sights along the river, and it soon became apparent how spiritual a place Bangkok is (was?) as we saw an innumerable amount of temples...

We passed by some local houses, and Sek (our guide) informed us that Bangkok was formed along the river with the local people living in floating houses, many of which that are still in place are over 100 years old. Some of the people in these houses make a living by selling fruit and drinks to the passers by in the boats and we were approached a by a number of traders in boats...

We also had a quick stop to feed some catfish (worth a photo we thought)...

Nicola actually took more catfish photos than I did!

Wat Po

Our next stop on the canal cruise (after feeding the catfish and walking through a Chinese market where they dried all the fish (Nicola did not enjoy that bit!) was Wat Po, an ancient temple that houses a MASSIVE reclining golden Buddha statue.

The heat was really affecting us today and we were actually darting between spots of shade (Nicola too if you'd believe that). The temple itself was beautiful, very grand and ornately decorated with gold EVERYWHERE. 

See below pictures from around the temple...