Thailand: Reclining Buddha, Temple of Dawn and Boat Ride

I'm home now and pretty exhausted.  The last 18 days have been amazing, but it is always good to be home.  So during our time in Bangkok, we went to lots of temples.  We were still in awe from the Grand Palace when it was time to view the Reclining Buddha (Wat Po).  This 150 foot sculpture is covered in gold.  The feet are 10 feet high with 108 signs of the Buddha in-laid in mother of pearl.  The Reclining Buddha is definitely worth seeing.  There are many bowls lined up to put coins in to make a wish.  You can also put gold leaf on the Buddha to pray for good health and good luck.  This was one of our favorite sights.

Next we stopped at the Temple of Dawn (Wat Arun) located near the river.  This temple is covered in mosaics of broken Chinese porcelain.  We started to notice that some of the Buddha sculptures looked different.  There is the chubby Buddha with the smiley face adopted from the Chinese, known as Happy Buddha.

We took a temple break for a long-tail boat ride in the canal on the Chao Phraya River.  We went up the river and saw the homes of people that live along side the water.  We saw lots of catfish.  The water looked very dirty, but it was fun to see the city from the boat.  After a long morning of sightseeing it was time for lunch.  More coming soon about Bangkok...