After I had passed the ticket gate, I was already overwhelmed by the amount of gold and grandeur all around, as well as by the amount of people and the level of noise produced by tour guides trying to make themselves heard above the crowd.
Luckily, I discovered that a free guided tour of the palace was scheduled to start about twenty minutes after I arrived. So I sat down in a corner and passed the time reading the palace brochure. (It wasn't a quiet corner, unfortunately; I doubt that there are quiet corners in the palace during visiting hours.)
The first few buildings we visited were not strictly speaking palace buildings: they belonged to Wat Phra Kaew, the king's private temple on the palace grounds. This is the main temple hall where the famous Emerald Buddha (made from jade, despite the name) is enshrined:
Next to all the entrances to the palace compound were these giant statues that are said to guard the palace:
After the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, this palace was the second one to feature a model Angkor Wat in its courtyard. The area around Angkor Wat changed hands more than once between the Khmer and Siam kingdoms, and so both kings apparently wanted to send a message along the lines of "Angkor Wat is ours!"
The monkeys and demons that are present throughout the palace come from the Thai creation myth Ramakien. Supernatural monkeys were helping the hero of the story, while demons fought against him.
Many of the gold decorations in the palace are made from real gold. As a consequence, it is strictly forbidden to touch anything. Unfortunately, tourists seem to find posing with statues more appealing than following rules. Our guide was really annoyed with all the statue-touchers and told several of them off - no small wonder if you consider how the statues' hands look after a while:
Here are two more views of Grand Palace buildings:
My next stop was Wat Pho, right next door to the Grand Palace. The statues that stood guard next to some doorways in Wat Pho seemed a little out of place with their fancy Western hats:
Wat Pho is home to a huge reclining Buddha statue - look at how small the people are that are standing next to it! The statue takes up all the space in one big building.
Outside, Wat Pho has many, many stupas decorated with colored porcelain pieces. These are just five of them - there are many more on the temple grounds.
Another feature of Wat Pho are its many courtyards that are lined with hundreds of Buddha statues.
