Thailand - 7 - Last day in Thailand

We woke up nice and early on our last day to a very nice day. We took the subway and sky train to the tourist's boat, which we road up the river to where we could start the Grand Palace walking tour listed in our Lonely Planet.

We walked down the Amulet market, which had every Amulet Thailand offers, as well as an abundance of other random things, such as health powders and teas, and even people trying to get us to buy Tiger pelts and claws. We just shook our heads quietly to these requests and walked faster, since it was not only sad to see these pelts displayed so openly (they bribe the police to let them sell illegal thongs), but it's just as illegal to kill Tigers and possess Tiger pelts in Thailand as it is in the US. Even if we wanted such a thing (which we absolutely did NOT), we would never have even gotten one out of Thailand.

After the Amulet Market, we wandered into, and about the Grand Palace for awhile. The grand palace was amazing. All of the wats in Thailand are so big and bright, with roofs covered in colored glazed terracotta tiles , but the Grand Palace is almost blinding. Books recommend not to visit there mid day, and it was no wonder, because at only 10 am it was already sweltering among all the reflective surfaces of the Palace.

After the Palace, we went to visit Wat Pho, which has the world's largest reclining Buddah. This Buddah is huge. We tried to take some pictures showing just the massive scale of this things, but it was hard. I was barely as tall as the Buddah's second smallest toe, and it is 15 meters high. It's also 46 meters long, and the building housing it rings with the sound of people constantly throwing prayer coins they had purchased into each of a long row of prayer containers.

After we were done at the wat, we went to a local restaurant for a lunch of a chicken, beef and veggie dish, a appetizer plate with shrimp cakes, spring rolls, tempura, and chicken wings. We also had pineapple and Mango smoothies.

After lunch, we hopped on the boat to China Town for our China Town walking tour.

China Town was either a shopper's dream, or a shopper's nightmare. It was shop after shop, open to a long and cramped alleyway. There was barely any space to squeeze past all the people, let alone the people with cartloads of goods and food for sale and the motorbikes that would periodically attempt to squeeze past the throng.

When we finally made our way out of the China Town alley, we decided to head back to the hotel to get ready to check out as well as to relax a bit from the heat and all the walking we had to be doing. I was excited to find a camera shop on the way back to the hotel that had the new lens cap (with the strap to keep it attached to my camera strap) for my camera, because I was afraid that my camera lens would be ruined at any moment without the lens cap (which it could have been, and that would have been a disaster for a less than two week old camera).

After we packed and checked out, we still had a few hours before we needed to be at the airport, so we decided to have the hotel's dinner buffet. It was probably the best buffet I have ever had. They had Indian food, a ton of lamb dishes and sushi, Thai food, western food, delicious cheese, and just all around good food. My favorite dish was steamed sea bass with chili, lime, garlic, and cilantro. It was probably my all-time favorite cooked fish dish, and I should remember to e-mail the hotel to see if they'll give me the recipe.

After dinner, the hotel called us a cab, which took us to the airport. We got checked in without any difficulties, but due to technical difficulties, our plane was canceled. We then spent the next hour running around to get re-booked on a new flight to take us back to Korea, and ended up having to go through security three more times due to all the running around and confusion with the planes. Luckily, it ended up working out, and we got on a plane about an hour and a half after our original plane was supposed to leave, and we arrived back in Korea safely and with no other incidents.

All in all it was a pretty awesome honeymoon, and if I could do it again, the only thing I would change is perhaps the length of time we were there. otherwise, it was wonderful.