Food Tour, Wat Pho & Grand Palace

Because we enjoyed our food tour so much in Hanoi, we decided to do another one in Bangkok. The one in Hanoi was a walking tour, but on this tour, we traveled between restaurants by Tuk tuk, which was a lot of fun. We had to make our way to the meeting point by taking two Skytrains, & an MRT train. It was a one hour trip. We met our guide Tukta & a South Korean mother & son who joined us. Tukta joined us in our Tuk Tuk. We enjoyed several “signature” dishes at several famous local restaurants, most of which had been family businesses for 20+ years. The Pad Thai restaurant usually has an hour to a ninety minute lineup outside to get in. Tukta told us that many locals eat in these restaurants or enjoy street food for 60 to 70 Thai Baht (less than $4 CDN) after work most days rather than cook for themselves. We can see why, as the local food we sampled was very tasty & the portion sizes, for the locals, were generous . We discovered that authentic Thai food has a variety of tastes, but is often spicy, & sour. They use plenty of fresh peppers, lime, many different spices, and different thicknesses of noodles. Sticky rice is popular too. We sampled a hot & sour soup, a pork & chicken dish, and egg pad thai, which is a recipe passed down from mother to son, & unchanged for 50 years. We also visited a 24 hour flower & vegetable market, which was quite different than markets in Vietnam. Tukta bought us each a lotus flower which we learned to fold. We took our flower to Wat Pho Buddhist temple to offer for luck at one of the many pagodas. Wat Pho is a spectacular temple which has been a training school for Thai massage for over 200 years. We finished the tour by enjoying a drink on the 5th floor of a restaurant on the river with another magnificent temple on the opposite side. Our Tuk Tuk driver dropped us at our hotel just after 11 pm. Another very interesting food tour, with some sightseeing & learning along the way.
This morning, Kim visited the Grand Palace and saw the Emerald Buddha enshrined in the Royal Chapel. Unfortunately, no photographs or video are permitted inside the chapel. The palace grounds were extraordinary containing several smaller pagodas, one of which was completely covered in gold mosaic. Ashes from royal family members are enshrined throughout the grounds.Read more