Today we sadly left Pattaya and Jomtien and headed back to Bangkok. Our flight back home is later tonight, and our friends' flight is tomorrow morning. Our time here in Thailand has been an amazing experience and we are sad to go. The four of us piled into a car and had a relaxing trip back up the coast.
Upon arriving in Bangkok we decided to roam about the city and check out some of the more noteworthy sites. Our little group walked all along the large avenues, passing gigantic photos of the King plastered everywhere. We saw the Royal Race Track, one of the King's Palaces, a few open air markets, The Democracy Monument, and many other interesting things on our way to nowhere in particular. It was the hottest, most humid day we have yet had in Thailand. There were moments when I thought the heat would overtake me and I would faint. In fact, our friends ended up having to leave us in our adventures and return to their hotel because the heat ended up making one of them sick.
On our own again, Nick and I grabbed a tuk tuk and had him show us around the temples of the city. He took us to some beautiful temples. One had a massive golden Buddha statue. The temple area was full of people praying with lotus flowers in their hands, making well wishes for the New Year.
We also went to the Golden Mountain, which was a stunning temple on top of a mountain in the middle of the city. There were beautiful stairs carved into the mountain with landings spaced out along the ascent. Each landing had prayer bells lined up along the path and as the throngs of people walked past each one rang the bells, creating a constant harmonious clanging. We alternated between marveling at the city views and marveling at the temple as we climbed up the hill.
Upon reaching the top we entered the temple and viewed the golden statues that were adorning the middle of the temple. It was beautiful and very peaceful, even though there were hundreds of people also making the trek up and in with us. It was also very very hot.
We walked back down the steps, again ringing the bells as we passed them, and exited the mountain to the circular road around the whole site. Street vendors sold all sorts of delicious looking treats and we headed back to the long line of tuk tuk drivers to catch a ride back to our friends' hotel where we had stored our bags. We checked to see how they were feeling and then took a cab to the airport. Soon we will be on a plane going back to Korea, and on Tuesday school begins again. We are sad to go but also missing our home. We are looking forward to seeing our students again. It has been a wonderful vacation; we feel so lucky to have had such an amazing time here in Thailand.
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