Wat Ratchanatdaram

Our first proper photo stop was at Wat Ratchanatdaram, a Buddhist temple complex which included in its interior Loha Prasat, the iron castle or monastery with 37 black spires to represent the virtues needed to reach enlightenment. I’ve not looked into what those virtues are but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say I’m around 37 short of the magic number required to transcend.

Outside the Buddhist temple area we had to wait for our coach to come around to pick us up; it was possibly stuck in traffic. This gave me a little opportunity to take some photos of the surrounding area and people passing by. A person riding a motorbike while wearing an orange skull mask was certainly something you don’t see every day on the roads in Britain but for all I know this is perfectly normal. I might have gripped my camera equipment a little tighter as he went past because I’m a naturally cautious person.

Wat Phra Kaew

The next stop on our Bangkok tour was Wat Phra Kaew, regarded as the most sacred Buddhist temple in Thailand and known in English as The Temple of the Emerald Buddha. This was an incredibly colourful place, with golden and ornate buildings as far as the eye could see. If anyone visits Bangkok then they’re very likely going to come back with dozens of photographs of this temple complex and it would be hard to blame them.

As is typically the case with cruise ship excursions there was a guided part to this tour followed by some free time to look around, shop for souvenirs, or take a look at the Emerald Buddha. I didn’t actually go in to see the Emerald Buddha (named for its colour, not the material, which is jade) as you had to take off backpacks and shoes and I was hot enough without wanting to cram in with hundreds of tourists, many of whom I suspected would have feet as whiffy as I imagined mine to be. My wife did go in and returned from the experience stating that yes, it was quite nice.

After exiting Wat Phra Kaew we walked as a group towards the riverfront and through a large street market area where we would be catching a boat for a ride for the next part of our Bangkok tour. The smells here were fabulous, as I’m sure you can imagine.

I always like being on or near the water (hence my love of cruises). Taking a river boat, even one through a city you know or have been through, gives a completely different outlook on the place. We found it interesting to see the opulence of the temples contrasting with the apparent poverty of some of the houses along the side of the Chao Phraya river

As you can see from the photos, it would be fair to say that I’ve seen clearer rivers than this one in Bangkok. When you see water this shade of brown your first thought is that it’s dirty and that may indeed be true but it’s also possible that the problem was one of a generally shallow basin and a lot of disturbed riverbed either along the stretch we cruised or farther upstream, or potentially run-off from dirt banks due to recent rain. I confess to not being an expert on rivers at this point and if you’ve found this page while looking for an analysis of the Chao Phraya in Thailand then I can only apologise for a wasted journey.

Our guided trip down Bangkok’s river took us initially southwards from where we’d embarked before turning around and heading north.

We stopped by a shrine at one point where bread was thrown into the river for the fish. This was something undertaken not just by us but by other boats too and was to bring luck. Or get rid of stale bread. The size of the fish showed that despite its murky colour the Chao Phraya seemed fairly healthy or the mud was full of growth hormones. Never rule anything out.

Our disembarkation point from our river boat ride was just on the north side of the Rama VIII bridge in Bangkok (that we had to travel under) which was fairly distinctive in appearance – and attractive to me – due to an asymmetrical design.

While most people rushed to book an early slot my wife and I chose one for a couple of hours’ time. My reckoning was that it was so hot and humid in Thailand’s capital city we’d simply end up offsetting any benefit of cleaning ourselves early on. This would also, however, give us some time to take a wander around the nearby streets which meant a certain someone in our group could take a few more photographs. We initially headed north a little bit from the hotel and then crossed the road down Soi Charoen Krung 85 where there seemed to be a lot of people and stalls. We had a nose in a few places but didn’t buy anything.

In truth, we didn’t get too far down this road as it was a little too crowded for comfort so we doubled back then walked a few hundred metres down the main thoroughfare of Charoen Krung Road instead. We stopped on a number of occasions to see if any shops had anything of interest but nothing grabbed our attention.

We made it down as far as Soi Charoen Krung 89 where we climbed up a pedestrian bridge over the road to take a few last photos of Bangkok.

We made a single stop in a shop to pick up a souvenir for my dad (a back scratcher that he still uses to this day) and some silk boxer shorts for me as I’d neglected to pack any clean ones (which were slightly too small even then and definitely too small now, although I still have them) then hit our hotel room, showered, and changed. The hotel room was gorgeous, it has to be said, with one of the largest bathrooms I’ve ever been in. After changing, we had several hours to kill so we met up with friends we’d made on the cruise and had some dinner in the hotel restaurant overlooking the Chao Phraya river as night fell in Bangkok.

The coach picked us and our luggage up not long afterwards and we bid farewell to Thailand and our honeymoon and our first cruise as we headed off to the airport to fly home.

Our flight was uneventful but it was only after we landed back at Heathrow and were picked up by my parents that we discovered we’d been on one of the last planes to leave the country before the airport was shut down by protestors. I wouldn’t have been too distressed at a little longer holiday to be honest.