On Saturday 19th of January 2013, the Rotary Peace Fellow members got together for a Bangkok city tour! We have learned so many useful information about this beautiful city, its history, the temples and Thai lifestyles. 

First, we made a stop at Wat Pho, which is located on the opposite side of the Grand Royal Palace.  In this temple, we observed a very big reclining buddha. According to our guide tour, Ms. Lek, the resting gesture of this buddha represents complete peace and detachment from the world. I personally like this buddha gesture very much as it represents my birthday, which falls on Tuesday. People who were born on Tuesday are believed to have brave, active, broad and serious mind characteristic! 

We then visited the Grand Royal Palace, which is considered to be the highlight of the day. 

This compound is considered a very sacred place, and  every visitor is requested to wear long trousers or skirt covered their knees to respect the buddhism and Thai culture. Inside this grand palace consists of a complex of royal palace, temples, beautiful gardens and pavilions. Some of the architectures got some influences from Lanna, Chinese, Khmer, Hindu and Sri Lanka, and they are mixed together harmoniously. The Grand Royal Palace on Saturday is very clouded, and full of both locals and foreigners. I myself enjoyed watching a group of local thai people bringing a donation to a monk, and praying for some words of wisdom and blessing. 

After having our lunch buffet,  we hopped onto the boat and made our way to Wat Arun, or Temple of Dawn. This temple is a landmark of Bangkok, as many vendors will notice this temple the first when they arrived Bangkok in the old time. The temple is named a temple of Dawn because  the first light of the morning reflects off beautifully with the surface of the temple. 

We also had a chance to climb up to the top of this temple. The stair to climb up is narrow, and was very clouded with both the local and foreigners. From the top, I enjoyed very much breathing fresh air, and viewing the beautiful scenery of the surrounding areas, and the Chaopaya river. To avoid congestion, We decided to climb down on the other side which was less croweded. However, seeing the stair from the top to the bottom was more scary, as it looked steeper and narrower ! Luckily, all of us managed to go down safely, and with the big smiles on our faces.   

We then travelled further more into the canals, where we could view the real lifestyle of Thai people who lives there for a decade. At first, I felt that the water quality in this area might not be that good, as there were some smells and water itself looked dark. But then, I had to change my view points as I saw many aquatic animals and many children enjoyed swimming everywhere.  As a tourist, the only thing I concerned is about the noise pollution from many tourist boats that passed through this canal many times a day. I do hope that Thailand will find its own way to answer the question "How much tourism is too much for them?". 

We ended our city tour at 16:00.