Touring the Temples

Early start today - pick up is at 7.30! Definitely no time for breakfast today! Dressed appropriately we headed off for our city and temple tour taking in 3 out of the cities 400 temples. We are barely scratching the surface of the temples in the city but the 3 we are seeing are good ones! Each has a different draw for visitors.

Our first stop is the temple that has a 5.5 ton solid gold Buddha - yes that is right - solid gold - worth £28mil ish! Even though it was quite early the temple itself was reasonably busy. It wasn't very big and on the way up the stairs to see the gold Buddha a guy came out of nowhere and started taking our pictures - like cameras right in our faces, it was totally like we were being papped! Yet another celeb experience of our holiday! I'm walking past with my sunnies on and hand over my face! Turns out he was using the pictures to make badges to sell - if he'd said this he might have found people would pose instead of looking away! We climbed the rest of the way and there it was - the most shiny Buddha you have ever seen. Apparently it was discovered under layers of plaster - what a great find. Apparently it is one of Thailand's most important Buddhas but having said that there are a number of these.

From here we headed to another important site - that of the reclining Buddha. Now we have seen one already in the Monkey Temple cave and we thought that was large but wow this was humongous! Trying to take a photo you can't get it easily in one shot. Its feet were made of mother of pearl - this was definitely a highlight. Around the temple that housed this giant Buddha were statues showing how to massage as apparently there are important links between this site and the traditional Thai massage. There were a number of elaborately decorated pagodas. In the base is where you place the ashes of loved ones and the pagoda forms a kind of memorial, but they have run out of room for pagodas so now the ashes go in boxes in the walls behind the many many statues of Buddha.

 

The final temple on our tour was the marble temple. Not so much a complex of buildings like at the last place but one elaborate and sparkly white temple, made from Italian marble. It was very quiet when we arrived mid morning and when we approached the temple we found a ceremony going on inside. Young apprentice monks were being ordained to be a full on monk. They were all dressed in white, bowed, with their heads shaved. One at a time they would approach an older monk where he would give them their orange robes. They then exited the temple to an area outside where the elders helped them get dressed in their new orange attire. They then had to go and speak individually to an elder monk before collecting their pot to collect offerings from the locals for the monastery. It was fascinating to watch and see them dedicate their life to the religion. You can do this for just a period of time and not your whole life and then return to your regular life after. That was interesting to find out - this is only for boys/men though, not women.

 

 It was definitely interesting visiting these 3 temples - each completely different to the one before. We did drive past the Grand Palace and down what was essentially like our Mall to Buckingham Palace. A fancy street, well decorated mostly for the Queen's birthday on the 12th. They had was looks like St Paul's Cathedral at the end -well a mini version. We then headed back to the hotel for a rest before our river night cruise tonight.

 5.15pm was our pick up - this leaves 2 hours to the ferry - we nearly missed it! I kid you not, the traffic was ridiculous. Now I know it's Friday but we sat at the end of our street for about an hour - no exaggeration! The pick up guy was panicking as we were late for our next pick up and we started discussing what to do instead! Slowly we crept along and eventually the pick up guy jumped out, ran along the road to collect the other person and ran back along the street, whilst we sat in the traffic! We made it by the skin of our teeth. No time to look in the mall attached to the dock, it was straight through - flower pinned on, photo took and to our seat! At least then we could relax. Table 1 didn't make it and we left without them - we hovered around the river then went back and picked them up. At least our food came in courses, theirs came all at once! The food was amazing but there was a lot of it. Spring rolls and crispy baskets filled with chicken and sweetcorn to start, then Tom Yum soup, then a main of rice, fish, green curry and prawn and broccoli - each! Then fruit, mango and sticky rice for pud! The views were good with the Grand Palace, Temple of Dawn and others all lit up and there was also some traditional dancing on our boat too. I'm glad we made it!!

Bow to the Big Buddha

Today our aim was to get to the Big Buddha on top of the hill in yonder distance but before contending with that we were woken up with the sound not of waves in the ocean but rain hitting our balcony and villa doors. We had seen some lightening out at sea the night before but early morning you hadn't heard rain like it! By the time the sun had risen luckily the rain had stopped and it was a glorious day.

We asked the hotel after breakfast about how to get to the Big Buddha and they said you can just get a taxi and as there was a taxi service in our hotel we went to find out the price. It turns outs that to have a private car and driver for the day was 400 bhat more than just getting a taxi to the Big Buddha - so celeb treatment number 2 we were off to see the Buddha in a private car!

Our first stop up the mountain towards the Buddha was to a view point over looking the bays of Karon and Patong. It was a spectacular view which many a tour group were stopping at so there was the typical toot sellers and on this occassion there was also a guy with 2 massive volture like birds! The other wildlife was also massive, namely the spiders and lizards!

We then got back in the car and headed furtehr up the mount! Our next stop after thankfully driving past the monkey show was another elephant camp to trek some more! OK so we have dopne some trekking in Krabi but what the hell, this time our ride was called Cocao and he was pretty relaxed. This time the trek was on a pretty flat track again over looknig the bay. It was a chillaxed plod along, the guy even offered us a chance to ride the elephant like he did by sitting by his head but we politely declined and stayed firmly in our seat! The elephants here seemd happy and followed instructions a little more easily than in Krabi. We even managed to barter the guy down in price for our photo - well it was a good shot of us!

Our next stop is the Big Buddha! As we approached the white marble Buddha it grew in size until we were dwarfed by its stature. It's a free attraction though I did have to borrow a shawl as I had a strapless dress on. It is still a building site really as they are planning on developing the area around the Buddha and also in sie it. The Buddha itself is a magnificent feat, apparently it's not the biggest Buddha in the world but it's still pretty damn impressive.

There are a number of other Buddhas around the site including another pretty big gold one! There was also one still being built that was standing but it still had its head covered with mesh, it was kind of freaky. Around the area were a number of bells where people had written their wished and hung them up so everywhere you walked was a quiet tinkling in the background. The view was amazing -you can see why they picked it as a site for the Buddha. It was built to honour the king and done all through donations, that is impressive, we bought our fridge magnet here and a necklace pendant so we have now officially contributed to the cintinous build!

Our time here finished with a fresh snack of coconut ice cream at 25 bhat! It was yummy and definitely needed as it was ridiculously hot!


Needless to say we were pleased to get back into the air conditioned car! We then went to Wat Chalong - quite a large area of temples. All the temples we are visiting are special in their own way and are impressive to say the least. We were looking around as you do when we heard what sounded like cars backfiring/gunfire/fireworks! It was very weird. What it actually was were people paying to set off fireworks in a brick build cavern thing - that was definately strange. We also saw a wedding couple having thier pictures taken - he was definitly punching abouve his weight snd also suffering in this heat in his suit!

 

The day was passing by and we still had our private car. He offered to take us to Tiger Kingdom which sounds amazing - a tiger zoo - but after looking at the leaflet it is actually where you go in the cage and pose with the tigers! Err no way! However tame they say they are it's not even worth the risk! We aksed politely to bypass this so instead we headed to a jewellery store - again not by choice - it was axactly like China, full of jems which they try and force you to buy - not a fan to be honest. We headed back to our villa for some much needed R & R. Our private car was another celeb highlight for sure!

Tonight we headed to Karon for tea - we found a good restaurant on trip advisor and the food was fab - the area however was dead! The only real busy-ness anywhere was in a bar with a band playing and that didn't have many people - we did however see a guying walking an elephant down the street! Just like you'd walk a dog!! Only in Thailand hey!

Celeb treatment in Phuket!

Woke up a little late as the alarm didn't go off - my bad - but still sorted and breakfast had ready to go to Phuket. I had another weird fruit today - will find out what it is - red and hairy! Yesterday's was like a Pikmin berry! Our taxi took 3 hours to get to Phuket but it turns out you can't actually fly from Krabi so it is the only way by land.

Wow, what a service we got when we arrived at our villa, a coconut on arrival, a lift to our spa villa which is amazing. We can lie in bed and look out to the ocean - it is truly magical, very much the celeb life. I wonder where the Kardashians stayed when they were in Phuket? We can see the Big Buddha from here too.

I am writing this as the sun sets over the Andaman Sea listening to the waves crash against the rocks below. You are definately forced to relax here! They rung us to check we were ok and gave us a platter of fruit! But the bell boy did accidently lock is in the villa! There was also a lizard in our room on arrival, we have a holiday pet! Oh Daniel was poorly (hung over) for an hour this morning but he fought through the pain! Drama Queen!!

Number of stray dogs and cats - lost count!

Everything is Awesome!

Today we fly - yay! S mini drama when we left the hotel as the hoppa to the terminal didn't seem to want to arrive but then it did so phew! Shame terminal 2 was delayed as we ended up rammed in terminal 3. We did see the actor Simon Callow though - another famous sighting at an airport to add to Chris de Burgh and Piers Morgan! To be fair it was pretty swift through security and not much of a wait for the flight. Daniel is loving Thai Airways as we have the first row behind the crew area so loads of leg room and wall mounted TVs with loads to choose from - also he's had free Chang beer! The airline has changed it's route to avoid the Ukraine which is obviously a peace of mind and we are now over the India/Bangladesh border, pretty near the Sunderbans actually.

Oh the reason the title is this is because we watched The Lego Movie and that was their really catchy song! We also watched Anchor Man 2 which was funny. Not long left now though in Thailand's time it is actually tomorrow so it's not good night but good morning!

Venturing to Venice

Today was our relaxing day at the beach - well it was meant to be our relaxing day at the beach! As our tour bus ticket didn't expire til 10.41am - yes I know accurate, we thought we'd take the first bus at 10.15am down to Santa Monica. Now the buses never run to schedule due to all the traffic so we were pushing it a little bit! It did not arrive at 10.15! What did drive past us was a police escort with a car on a trailer filming a moving car scene - cool. Thankfully our bus did turn up at 10.35 - just in the nick of time!

Our first stop today was Santa Monica Pier - where there was more filming! This time we had not only no idea who it was but also what he was saying - it was Mexican, but he did look like he was doing a link for a TV show. The pier was good, it was sunny, we stopped for a hot dog (#2 of the holiday) then took a walk along the beach towards Venice Boardwalk. it's further than you think! This is why our day wasn't as relaxing as it should have been!

At this point the weather was great, we took in the street vendors, quirky shops and performers and the odd crazy then grabbed a milkshake at Muscle Beach and watched some 3 on 3 basketball action. It did get a little heated - probably playing for money or if being cynical or believing the films drugs or women lol. There weren't many muscles on Muscle Beach, probably because it's the middle of the day on a Wednesday, early morning or a weekend would probably be busier. People were playing to pose with the muscles that were there. Sorry I shouldn't call them muscles - they are people after all. That was a little weird.

We headed back to Santa Monica - stopping on the way to buy some art from a local artist - he was cool, had a book showing his work exhibited in many countries, never been to the UK yet though.

This is where we were a little naughty as our bus tour tickets had now expired but in a taxi it would be quite expensive, if we had to get a taxi we would but we thought we'd try to get on the tour bus first. It worked!! They didn't even check our ticket! We plugged our earphones in to make it look like our first time doing this part of the tour! Heehee. We used our journey to figure out where to go for tea for our last night in LA as we didn't want to go back to Westfield. #we settled for the best steak house in Beverly Hills - Mastro's.  We managed to book a table online - good job as when we got there it was heaving! The steak was amazing - the best steak ever (well it should be at that price) but truly it was the best steak I've ever had. Big claim. Cooked perfectly. Also had great service - you can see why it's a favourite of the Beckhams and Kardashians - oh yes we googled who had been there once we got back! We even got driven back to the hotel by their private car - we asked for a taxi, got escorted to a sleek black car and driven home! It was a great way to end our time here.

Chicken Headed Bimbo's and LARPs!

After touring LA yesterday we thought today we'd actually visit some of the attractions LA has to offer so first stop La Brea Tar Pits. We all know how disappointed I was the last time I was here, not being able to visit the Tar Pits - well this time we made it! We got off the bus outside to be greeted by a lady with two disabled people shouting down her phone that she had told the chicken headed bimbo that she would need help today and to be fair to her there was no way she could push both wheelchairs alone. It was definitely the best insult I'd heard for a while!

We headed into La Brea Park and the the pits - it smelt like workmen were resurfacing a road! Not only can you see the pits outside, the pit they were currently working on they also have the Page museum too. In here they have all the bones of animals discovered in the pits - giant land sloths, sabre toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, they were massive - it was awesome, the makers of Ice Age are genius to think of making something like this into a film. I'm glad we finally made it there - it was totally worth it.

We left the tar pits and walked through the park to LACMA. The first piece of art we saw before even getting to the door was this suspended rock above a walkway - it was huge, you wouldn't want that dropping on you - you'd end up looking like a cartoon character with arms and legs sticking out of a rock that splattered you into the ground. We got to the door to find out it was free Tuesday! Awesome, saving bucks on holiday - 30 of them - is great, pennies, sorry cents, to be spent on other things. LACMA is massive, I think it was 7 buildings so there was no way we could see it all but we did our best. We saw Japanese, European, American, Pacific art work and Metropolis II, though as it was a free day it wasn't running. It was a very cultural morning!

We left for the bus only to see the same woman as earlier still waiting. I guess the chicken headed bimbo still hasn't sorted her problem!

Morning = Culture            Afternoon = Celebrities

We headed back to Hollywood for a bite to eat and then a celebrities home tour! We took a walk up and down Hollywood Boulevard (not in the same vein as Julia Roberts!) to select the best tour we could for the best price and ended up taking a starline quality tour but for half the price - oh yeah and it turns out the guy's wife is from Doncaster! This was great, in a roofless slightly smaller minibus whizzing around the winding roads, first stop Mulholland Drive - a great view over Hollywood Bowl, downtown and the Hollywood sign. Then up into the hills, round Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive again. I love gossip so this is the best tour for me! We saw Beckenham Palace and Tom Cruise's land next door, I say land as he owns most of the hill and has a spacecraft like gate. We also saw Jackie Chan's place, Eddie Murphy, Marilyn Monroe, Steven Spielberg, Ice and Coco, Dr Phil, The Osbournes old house, Michale Jackson's house where he died and the Playboy Mansion as well as a block of condos where Cher and Matthew Perry owns whole floors. We saw where Wynona Ryder stole all that stuff and where Lindsay Lohan crashed her car drunk. It was v cool - also v touristy but who cares! Our guide told us about LARPs as we went round. Loads of awesome houses not owned by anyone famous - owned by LARPs = Lucky Arse Rich Person - I want to be a LARP! It makes you see how the other half live...and makes you wish you live like them!

Pink Taco was our choice for tea tonight - back to the Westfield - it's been a tiring day! The brisket tacos were however amazeballs.

What's Your Dream? (Again)

A car is vital in LA if you want to get anywhere soon, if not it takes forever! Our plan for today was to get the hop on hop off bus - which handily stops outside the hotel, we can suss out the locations and decide where we want to visit as we're never going to be able to do it all - as the guy on the plane said, you won't see everything in 4 months let alone 4 days!

We eventually got the bus, it was half and hour late and headed on the yellow line to Santa Monica. There's not much between us and Santa Monica so the guide bus played the Beach Boys down our earphones! We didn't get off at Santa Monica today, we decided to come back another day and continue on the yellow line to Beverly Hills.

We alighted here and took a stroll round Rodeo Drive, on route we saw Stan Lee! Now I obviously didn't recognise him but Daniel insisted it was him driving round a corner in a Porche. We were then on a celebrity hunt. Needless to say we didn't see anyone else - well anyone we knew. We did see an awesome car outside of Bijan - which we later found out was the most expensive men's clothes store in he world - only accessible via appointment! The car was cool, I couldn't tell you what it was but Daniel could - a Bugatti Veyron. We didn't buy anything on Rodeo - well except lunch and that was even on the corner of another street, don't think we could afford Rodeo prices!

After lunch we boarded the red route to Hollywood. It is a completely different world in Hollywood and unlike what you expect the area to be like. It is not glamorous at all, filled with souvenir shops, rammed with tourists and littered with all kinds of people dressed as different famous film characters. We got accosted by Scream and posed for a photo. We wandered around a little, took in some stars then got the red route round the rest of the tour seeing landmarks like the hotel where Julia Roberts stayed in Pretty Woman - not the Wilshire with Richard Gere - we had already seen that but her and Kits place - apparently it is still a bit of a dive like in the film! I know I have used this title before - but it is the quote that comes to mind every time I think of here. What would it have been like without Pretty Woman in the 80s!?! We also saw the Whisky A Go Go - which the Bourbon Rooms from Rock of Ages is based on and then headed back to the hotel. When I say headed back we didn't actually arrive til a couple of hours later. Not having a car means getting anywhere takes forever!

We stopped in the hotel for tea tonight as we were knackered from all the travelling!! Why are portions so large!!?!!