Our next stop was Bangkok. John and I were looking forward to it because we had such a great time when we went there last year. We took my parents in the river taxis up the Chao Phraya river to see the temples and palaces along the way. One of the standouts is Wat Pho, (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). The largest Buddha image in Thailand, it is 46 meters long and 15 meters high. It's covered in gold plating and its eyes and soles of its feet are all inlaid mother-of-pearl, which is gorgeous. This temple was also the birthplace of Thai massage. Thai massage is different in that they put your body through a lot of stretching motions in addition to massage, plus you wear pyjama type clothing during it. Afterwards you are not only relaxed, but you feel much more limber and have more energy. It's great!
Here's a couple pictures from our stroll down Soi Cowboy. I won't go into details on why this street is so well-known, but you can read about it here if you wish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi_Cowboy And yes, we did check out a few of the "bars".
This is pretty sad, but maybe sharing it would prevent some future tourists from making this mistake. There was a sweet elephant that a couple Thai men were parading up and down the street. For a small price you could buy some snacks and feed them to the elephant. We did not choose to do this, but an American told us that the men periodically take the elephant around the corner, force it to throw up all its food, and then bring him back out and continue to let tourists feed him over and over again! Made me so sad....You might remember John and I ate at a really cool rooftop restaurant on our last trip to Bangkok on the 61st floor of a hotel. Not to be outdone, my parents suggested we eat at Sirocco, which is the highest rooftop restaurant in Bangkok at 63 floors up! The food was delicious, the jazz band great, and of course, you can't beat the view!
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