Monday

28 Feb 2010 - Bangkok, Thailand

Our last day in Thailand and last full day of The Southern Hemisphere Trip. We took seven weeks and visited five countries: Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Bali and Thailand.

Two tours this day. One was to the Royal Palace and the other was "The Temple of the Golden Buda".















The Royal Thailand Palace Grounds







Many of these similar type statues were
scattered around the palace grounds.

















Changing of the guard at the less important building.












Guard and Janet at the Palace entrance. The photo "could" have been altered slightly.
































































And we saw many fanciful
figures like these.





































This is the object of the tour today. "The Golden Buda" is made of pure gold.



Golden Buda up close.




Our guide said small drawers below these figures contained ashes of the dearly departed.








"The Reclining Buda" was made of bronze and was so large that there was no angle to get a decent picture.









My attempt to show the prespective of "The Reclining Buda"




Many Monks were walking the grounds at The Golden Buda. We didn't expect to see a Monk carrying a camera.




This picture was taken at the airport in LA just after surviving a 14 hour flight nonstop from Bangkok. We flew Thailand Air with complimentary drinks during the complete flight if one so desired.

The US Customs Agent actually said: "Welcome back to the US". I was shocked enough to just reply: "Thank you".

We certainly enjoyed the trip. For absolutely "the other world", we found Bali to be the strangest and most intriguing, the most unlike the US. New Zealand beaches were the best, isolated, wide with pounding surf. There were times in New Zealand and Australia, when inland one could forget it was not the US. Fiji and the outer islands were the most ocean shores vacation like with it's south seas settings and warm waters. Bangkok, well we were glad we had the chance to visit but will bypass it next time.

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