One night in Bangkok...

We headed back into Bangkok late this morning. Today we went to Wat Saket, which is also known as Golden Mount. The building wasn't so impressive, but the view was pretty nice. There were also large bells that you could ring. Of course the girls had fun with that!

In the same area there was "Monk's Bowl Village". It's really just one little street now, but it is known for the families that moved there when the capital changed from Ayuthaya to Bangkok. Those families brought their trade skill with them and they still make the Monk's bowls (for collecting alms) in the same way. We watched them hammering and polishing for a bit and then headed off to the train station where we had to get tickets for our trip to Yasothon in north-eastern Thailand.

We then went down by the river to watch the sunset. It took some searching and some wet feet, because the river has flooded some of the smaller streets, but eventually we found a small restaurant on the river bank, with a great view of Wat Arun (a.k.a. Temple of Dawn). We had perfect timing as the sun was just going down.

It was pretty impressive to see the lights come on and the scene above slowly transition to the scene below. Really beautiful.

After supper we went by the Grand Palace and saw the wat and palace buildings all lit up. We couldn't go in but the view of the peaks of the buildings from over the edge of the wall was still good. It was really busy in front of the palace, because people were paying their last respects to the king's deceased sister, who has been lying in state for a while and will be cremated later this week. So we got a tuk tuk out of the busy area to one of the main bus terminals (Victory Monument) so that we could catch our express bus back to Nonthaburi.

We're all tired now and are thinking of a more relaxing day tomorrow.

CM, NM