Last Day in Bangkok...for now

We got up late this morning - maybe postponing the inevitable for a while.  Time to choose what we will do for our last day in Bangkok.  We thought about going to the Jim Thompson House, but decided not to go there in the end.  We considered one last shopping trip to Siam Paragon or MBK, but rejected that as well.  We ended up going to one last palace museum - the Dusit Palace.  This is a complex of royal residences (no longer used of course) and museums.  Again, there are no pictures allowed inside but I found a few on the internet.  One of the most interesting mini-museums was the Royal Elephant National Museum.  In here we found out all about the royal "white" elephants and what makes them be considered "white" (because they looked grey to us!)  In a nutshell there are seven characteristics that make up a white elephant including eye color, inside their mouth and some of the hair.  Who knew?  Anyway, the white elephants belong to the king and they are highly revered.

Tusks of deceased royal white elephants (taken only after they passed away)

From there we went to the textile museum.  This houses a spectacular collection of Thai silk and cotton and explanations of the different types and regions.  There was also a collection of tools used in silk and cotton making, spinning and weaving.  We thought often of Derrick's mom during this visit.  She would love this - and would probably understand it far better than we did!

The Throne Hall, completed in 1915, was open, but no shorts are allowed and we didn't feel like renting sarongs, so we skipped it, but we did take this picture of the outside...

Since we couldn't get in here, we went back to the mini-museums and checked out one more - the Royal Carriages.  In here were several palanquins (Hey, V, you and I each need one of these!!)

But our favorite was - wait for it...  The Royal Tuk-Tuk!!  Okay, so maybe it's not quite a tuk-tuk, but it sure looks like one!! It's awesome.

We'll have some final thoughts on this marvelous adventure when we get home.  I have a file of "Just Weird Stuff" that I am saving and then we have a 12 hour layover in Seattle, so we are looking into a short adventure there.  So, I'll bug you with a bit more in the next week or two, then settle back into the routine of choir, school, home and work.  For now the adventuring goes onto the back burner, but wanderers are we and our next adventure will be here before ye know it!