The Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda

Amy and I went to the Royal Palace. My guidebook told me that it would cost $3 to get in, but really it costs $6.25. After we bought our tickets a man came up to us to see if we would like to buy a tour guide for $5. We declined and ventured in with our information packet. When we were about 20 steps into the grounds we regretted not paying the extra $5 for a tour guide. We really had no clue what we were doing, or what we were looking at. We kept trying to go into the Throne Hall, but the guards kept turning us away. We made our way to the Silver Pagoda area. There were a lot of different building to go into. Most, if not all, of the buildings were little shrines. Apparently Amy and I saw 2 of the 4 footprints that Buddha has left behind - below will be a picture of one of them. We also saw the largest emerald Buddha (actually crystal, I think) - he resides in the Silver Pagoda. Unfortunately we could not take pictures in there. As we were trying to leave the Palace grounds we discovered that we were locked in. There would not let anyone out on the street until the King's motorcade passed - which took 20 minutes of waiting.

I just found it too hard to concentrate on the reading in the hot sun - I should have splurged on the tour guide! After I got home I sat down and read the whole information packet - I learned a lot about the coronation process, and what some of the other structures were. To my surprise a lot of the former King's ashes were entombed in some of the different stupa's we saw.

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the outside gate. My information packet has a small picture of it, and it is titled, "The story of the churning of the Ocean of Milk." I have no clue what that means!

This is the Throne Hall


Here is a little shrine - I really just liked all the orchids in the back!


One of buddha's footprints


The Silver Pagoda


A spirit house