Yul Brynner

I once received a piece of sage advice, that one night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble. Being the brave soul that I am, I tried for two nights. I wish Chad the best of luck going for 8 weeks. Oh, if you wanted to know why Yul Brynner mattered in that song, he was King Mongut of Siam in The King and I. That's something I would never have known.

My time in Thailand did not start off on the right foot. We had an excellent meal on Thursday night, or so I thought. By Friday morning, it was obvious I ate something very wrong, as the meal made a reappearance. I blame the fish.

Like Murray Head said, Bangkok has both muddy old rivers (that smell absolutely horrible) and a reclining Buddha. Actually, one of the world's largest reclining Buddhas.
But more on that later. After Thursday's debacle, we had hoped to go sightseeing on Friday. Unfortunately, the weather did not want to cooperate, so we went to a shopping district. The MBK mall is simply enormous. Each floor is dedicated to a certain type of item. 4th floor is games and DVD copies. 6th floor was touristy trinkets. It was okay. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Paul's Fashions, where Dave and I decided to get fitted for some custom clothes. I bought a shirt and slacks. Pretty impressive considering they were ready the next day.

Saturday finally brought a day we could see the sights, which is Bangkok is temples, temples, and more temples. We started the morning off at Wat Arun, which was an 85 meter tall prang, or "tall thing".
After Wat Arun, we headed over to Wat Po, also known as Wat Phra Chetuphon. This is where the reclining Buddha is located. It's pretty much the major draw to this temple, although there are a couple of other sights too.
Leaving Wat Po, we headed to the largest temple/palace in Bangkok, The Grand Palace. Up until King Rama IX, this was where the king lived. It's also the location of the Emerald Buddha, which is actually jade. This was a pretty impressive sight. Also, they have a very strict dress code at this palace, with no shorts, tank tops, or inappropriate clothing.

Now that my jaunt to Southeast Asia is over, I'll probably be spending the next two weeks or so here in Guangzhou. Because of that, I'll have less cool things to show. I may make a trip down to Hong Kong though, so check back.