Our last day of vacation!!!! Our flight leaves super late tonight (well, really very early tomorrow morning), so here are some highlights from everything we tried to pack in today.
We're back at the Shangri-La, so of course we couldn't pass up the breakfast buffet. After that, we stepped out to Wat Pho. The grounds were expansive and covered with large and small temples. It was really difficult to capture just how many temples there were and how tall their spires were:
 |
| Wat Pho |
 |
| Art shot, of course |
On the grounds was also a reclining Buddha - a HUGE one. This temple was easily the size of a school gym, probably bigger. Again it was difficult to capture the Buddha all in one shot, but you get the picture:
 |
| The soles of the Buddha's feet were inlaid with mother of pearl designs |
From there we headed to the Jim Thompson House Museum. Jim Thompson revived the art of weaving silk decades ago and now has many stores throughout Thailand (and probably the world). The museum was a home he owned in downtown Bangkok, but it has been turned into a museum that people can tour to learn about how silk is made. We didn't take the tour, but on the grounds around the house were a few cool demonstrations going on, like this one:
 |
| A guy was sitting at a weaving station over this boiling pot of silk worm cocoons. As the water boils, the super thin strands of silk are gathered and spun together to make thread. |
 |
| This was a cool gar in a pond on the grounds of the museum |
Hungry for lunch, we stopped at the Siem Paragon mall to check out their food court. The food courts in SE Asia are nothing like food courts in the US; they are super posh, super clean and super busy. We fought the crowds for piri piri chicken and passion fruit sorbet.
Sylvie and I were itching for some shopping, so we walked around for a while in the huge mall, enjoying the air conditioning.
Our last stop of the day was at Lumphini park (very close to where we watched the Thai kick boxers on our first night) to see the water monitors. Andrew read that the park is home to a population of water monitors who can commonly be seen sunbathing out in the open. We were a little suspicious that the monitors would be easy to find, but we were happily surprised within the first two minutes when we scared a water monitor into the water (on the edge of the parking lot) and out of the clutches of a stalking cat!
It turns out the water monitors are everywhere. We saw seven or eight in the 20 minutes we were roaming around:
 |
| Lumphini Park |
 |
| Water monitor walking in the road |
 |
| This was a big one. We approached slowly and he sat for photos for a bit, but we eventually got too close and he booked it into the water. |
 |
| Art shot of a tree in Lumphini Park |
We had a big day, so we sat by the pool for a little bit before getting ready for dinner. As the sun went down I took some more art shots of the river as the sun was setting:
Dinner was grill-your-own BBQ at Rivercity Restaurant down the river from our hotel. It was open air and really cool, but the music was just horrendous. At the restaurant there was a guy singing easy listening hits - live - and on the river below us there was a huge party boat with top 40 hip hop hits - karaoke style. We couldn't get away from it!
Anyway, grill-your-own BBQ sounds exactly like what it is - they set up a grill in the middle of your table and you grill your choice of meats and veggies:
 |
| Hot coals in the pot at our table |
 |
| Cast iron grill covering the coals. There was a little lip around the edge of the grill where you could boil things as well. |
 |
| Our last meal! |
That's it. All she wrote. Sayonara. Day 16 will be spent flying across the world. I don't know if it's hit any of us that it's really over. The trip has been unbelievable and we're already talking about where to go next. But for now we're preparing to hibernate for the next 20 hours, hopefully with no delays. Wish us luck. See you all soon!
