Day 2: The Grand Palace, sky buffet, circus show and Tiffany's show

Today's main attraction was the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It features a series of buildings over a wide area, including a magnificent decorated temple and throne hall (Phra Thinang Chakri Maha Prasat). In contrast to Chinese or Japanese Buddhist temples, Thai temples pride themselves over decorating their walls with bright colours, in particular gold. Inside the temple itself (Temple of the Emerald Buddha), you have to take off your shoes, hat and refrain from taking photos. Inside is a huge monument of different Buddhas with the Emerald Buddha situated in the center high above the rest. It takes about an hour to walk around the whole site, or more if you explore every nook and cranny. Clothes etiquette: need to wear long pants. Women can wear long skirts but men can't. T-shirts are fine.

[hallway paintings]

Being part of a tour, luckily we need not worry about transport or itinerary planning so after finishing the Grand Palace tour, we hopped onto an air conditioned bus and zipped away towards the Baiyoke Sky Hotel for a grand buffet. Along the way, I couldn't help but notice many stray dogs in the streets.  They're not in bad condition nutrition wise so I assume that owners tend to allow their dogs wonder freely in the streets. Although rather than seeing dogs prance about and chasing cars, most were sleeping in the shade and trying to shy away from the sun, which I can't blame them.

At the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, the buffet restaurant is on the highest level (level 77) so you can enjoy the city scenery alongside your meal. The types of dishes available include Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, some Western (steak), seafood and desserts (ohh the desserts! =D). There are plenty of drinks to choose from and top up too, including coffee, hot chocolate, milk tea, ice coffee (a recommendation) and juices. Tea is the only drink you have to pay for. What I like most were the noodles where you can select your preferred vegies, meat and noodles to go with the pre-made hot soup - a must try!

After lunch we went to Sriracha Tiger Zoo. Not much of a fan with watching tigers doing circus tricks, but better than getting hunted in the jungles I suppose? There was also a crocodile show which was slightly more impressive with trainers leaving their hands in between the croc's open wide jaws, then moving on with their heads...i've never seen a trained croc so I'll give them a point for that. There's also an elephant show which we missed.

I don't have specific details of all the dishes we had for dinner, but the Tomyum soup was extremely hot full of Thai chillis (pretty much a soup that I'll be seeing for the next 5 days), rest of the dishes were not too strong in flavour but well balanced. Curry was also a common dish in our meals. We also had a 'specialty” of bird's nest in a coconut. Pretty meh, but apparently you can get the birds nest anywhere in Thailand, which is different from places like China and Hong Kong where it's a mega delicacy. 

In the evening we arrived at Pattaya, a city famous for its sex industry and transvestite shows. With its dimly lit streets and bars, the place was crawling with tourists and live bands, so it doesn't get as busy and lively as this. 

We stayed at the Eastin Hotel, right in the center of the busy city. Personally the only down side was the dimly lit room, which goes with the rest of the city theme I suppose..Otherwise all the facilities were there, except no toothbrushes as usual. They have all the bathroom complimentaries though, with 2 complimentary glass bottles of water (although you have to return the glass bottles to the hotel). Compared to the first hotel, the live music heard outside doesn't stop until around 3am, so if you're a light and early sleeper this won't be the best hotel to live in (but then again being in Pattaya, why would you sleep so early and miss the activity?).

 

So instead of retiring early, my family decided to go watch an extravagant cabaret show starring an all transvestite cast. Being one of the top 10 shows in the world (2001), Tiffany's show was indeed unlike any other. Every single performance was a show stopping musical number, with each style based on an international type of music and dance. Of course they're just lip-syncing, but the costumes, music, dancing, props, lighting and altered bodies looked real and amazing. It's almost unbelievable to think of what the guys have to put themselves through with surgery to get to look super skinny and feminine. No photos of the performance obviously, which is a shame. Prior and after the show the guys in costume would come out to the fountain area in front and people would flock over to take pictures. I was told that they can be quite persistent,  because if you take a photo with them and you end up 'touching' them, it would cost 100 baht. Especially when you touch their boob, which they would try hard to get you to do (and that costs extra I presume). It's weird hearing about it, but I don't think they need to get really desperate since so many tourists love taking photos with them.