Barely in Bangkok

I will try to avoid complaining too much about my lost pictures in this post, but it won't be easy!

We had one night in Bangkok on our layover between Melbourne and Chiang Mai. We got in pretty late, but we stayed at the beautiful Hilton on the Chao Phraya River using Zack's points and enjoyed some room service and the view. This picture is from the plane, but the view from our hotel window was about the same.




In the morning (before our flight), we went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, which is one of the world's largest markets. It covers 27 acres, and it includes everything from food to pets to clothing to furniture to basically anything else you can imagine! We only got to see a small portion of the market, but it was fun to explore. The only picture we have of it is me sitting with the luggage (since we had to go straight to the airport).

The signs in the cab rides entertained us. Check out these symbols on the window. Can you figure out what each one means? Does the first one mean you're not allowed to bring a goat inside the cab?! I don't even want to know about the third one.

I purposely booked another long layover from Chiang Mai to Phuket a few days later so that we would have a full day in Bangkok to explore more of the city. We went to the Grand Palace, which is an absolutely incredible complex of buildings and temples with intricate designs. It absolutely breaks my heart that I lost my pictures from this day, because I spent hours walking around the grounds getting hundreds of amazing photos. Zack's phone pictures will have to do. The Temple of the Emerald Buddha, or Wat Phra Kaew, is located here, but you weren't allowed to take pictures inside the building. It's considered the most sacred temple in Thailand. The little green Buddha (about 26 inches tall) that sits atop mounds of golden decorations is said to be carved from one piece of jade stone, and there are many legends surrounding it. 

At temples in Thailand, you have to remove your shoes before entering. Also, you're not supposed to point your feet toward the Buddha image, so you tuck them behind you when you sit/kneel. It's also a requirement to wear long pants and shirts that cover your shoulders. At the Grand Palace, they make you rent/borrow clothes if you don't have appropriate attire.

After exploring the Grand Palace, we walked to the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, or Wat Pho. A well-known massage school is located here, and we each got a massage to see how good it was compared to the cheaper ones we had received in Chiang Mai (yes, this was better!). The main attraction is the huge reclining Buddha; it's 160 feet long!

We took a boat ride down the river in the late afternoon before catching our flight to Phuket, which was a nice way to see the city and a few more temples from afar. We didn't have much time in Bangkok, but we made the most of it!


Though my pictures are lost, I highly suggest you click on these links and scroll through the visitor photos. There are some that are similar to the ones that I took, and it's worth checking them out to get a feel for the amazing sights we were privileged to see in Bangkok.

Grand Palace

Temple of the Reclining Buddha

My Poor Pictures

I'm so sad. I took my corrupt memory card to a camera store in the CBD and paid $140 for data recovery. Well, they recovered data alright...over 1300 files...but none of them are from our Thailand trip. :( :( :( There were tons of old pictures, which I had downloaded (but apparently not completely deleted) long ago. But we've officially lost hundreds of photos. All of the ones of the temples and our cooking class in Chiang Mai, along with the amazing sights and temples in Bangkok...GONE. I had SO many amazing shots from the Grand Palace, the giant Reclining Buddha, the markets, etc. I bought a couple of new camera lenses before the trip specifically to take these pictures, especially the wide-angle lens, and I spent hours walking around getting great shots. And now there is no hope of getting them back. The sad part is I know how good they were, because after our waterproof camera broke, I switched the memory card to my big camera and could see them. But when I got home and tried to put the card in my computer to download the files, it didn't work. And now it won't work in any camera. It just won't work at all. I'm devastated. :(

P.S. Is there a SanDisk representative or memory card expert out there reading this who would like to try to get my pictures back for me?

P.P.S. Luckily, I was using two memory cards throughout the trip, and we have some phone shots, so I'll still do blog posts on the rest of our trip. The Chiang Mai and Bangkok ones just won't be accompanied by good photos. So sad.

P.P.P.S. I finally went to the doctor, because my "elephant mite bites" were not going away and were still itchy. It turns out I have some sort of tropical disease (he didn't know which one). So now I'm on antibiotics that I have to take every six hours (which means setting my alarm for the middle of the night), and I have to put a cream on my ankles every day. Fun stuff.