Grand Palace

Grand Palace

My friends and I decided to split up for part of one afternoon because we all had different sites we wanted to see and experience. I chose to go to the Grand Palace.

The Grand Palace was used as the royal residence for the Kings of Siam since 1782. The current King lives at a different palace, but still uses the Grand Palace for official events. (Wiki)

I could live at a place like this!

The Temple of the Emerald Buddha

Around the palace grounds, there were many pagodas. The most famous is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and as you might imagine, it houses an emerald Buddha. To enter, everyone needs to take off their shoes and many people stay inside for an extended time to meditate. The temple is technically a chapel since there are no living quarters for monks. Cameras were not allowed inside.

 

There were other places of worship and buildings with cool spires around the grounds.

Murals

I really enjoyed the ornate wall paintings that ran around the palace. I imagine that I'll have plain walls when I own a house, but if I get more fancy, it would be so cool to have epic scenes with gold characters like the palace.

The paintings often combined people with spirits and mythical beasts

Protection

I appreciated all the guards that watched over the palace.

Not quite as intimidating as the gunmen

The soldiers are too short to stand without a podium

In addition to the color guard, soldiers were painted on doors

And, there were spirit guardians

Holding up the walls

And animals guardians. Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to anyone who was devout to truly understand the meaning and significance of all the mythical creatures.

Guardians of the rubbish

 

Dragon guardian

Thai Lie

Many, many people experience what I call the “Thai Lie”. Many opportunistic Thais prey on tourists by telling them that certain sites are closed when they are not. They do this to divert the tourists to other sites and then force them to go to suit shops. The most common place to experience the Thai Lie is at the Grand Palace

The government tries to combat the lies with signs like this.
There are loud speakers that go around the entire palace. They continually
 play a message that the palace is open every day so tourists don't get fooled.

Showing off my rental pants. There are a ton of shops outside the palace that sell

and rent pants; however, they are available for a refundable deposit inside.

After I was done at the Grand Palace, I started walking towards our meeting point, which was another museum. As I walked, a man approached me and told me that the museum was closed for lunchtime, so I should walk up the street in the meantime. I knew he was lying and kept on going saying I had to meet my friend. Then right outside the front gate, I met another guy. After talking for five minutes, he said that the museum was closed for a Buddhist celebration, but that it would be open later. In the meantime, he knew a great black Buddha that he could take me to. We were literally right outside the national museum so I said, "No, I'm just going to walk in and meet my friend." And I did. Sure enough, it wasn't closed.

They call Thailand the land of smiles and I’ve never met people so good at lying to you while smiling. It reflects quite poorly on the country that taking advantage of their guests comes so easily. My experiences here combined with my experiences in taxis made me feel the least welcomed by locals of all the places I visited.