Day Forty-Eight
Bangkok
24 September 2007 21:36

Our taxi ride from the airport, when we had finally figured out where to get the taxis, was hair-raising indeed.

The traffic here is as bad as I’ve seen on TV or heard about. The drver was doing 110 in an 80 zone and a number of times I thought a crash was imminent.

When finally we reached our hotel, the brief step out of the air-conditioned taxi into the hot, thick, humid street was a shock to the system.  After so many cheap hotels we’ve gone for a 5-star hotel, partly because we got a good deal, and besides smelling of smoke it’s quite nice.

Since our time is limited, we opted to do some “tours” instead of legging it ourselves as we’ve been doing.  Our feet need a break anyway.

The first tour was a rice barge along the canals of Bangkok.  I new the city was on the water but am surprised at how much water, rivers and canals there are here.  The barge moves at quite a pace which makes taking photos quite a challenge.

The barge came to a stop on some stairs (literally, it just pushed onto them) which came out of the water.  Here, people were washing their clothes on the bank in muddy waters.  Washing themselves, too.

We got off the barge with the group, turned around onto a dock and got onto a larger boat where we cruised back to the starting point.  Thai fruit was served but we didn’t likemuch of it.  Mango and sticky rice wasn’t bad though.

Our tour bus took us back to the hotel in the busy streets again; it’s strange seeing a city this was as we have been on street level the whole time.  This feels a bit removed from it all.

At the hotel we hit the pool, on the top floor of the building, which offered nice views.

Another tour, this time for dinner took us to an old, lame restaurant.  There were maybe 15 guests in the place who all came to see traditional Thai dancing.  The dancing was fine but we expected a lot better than this!  I guess you get what you pay for.  The dancing included a “battle” scene with people in “monkey” and “demon” costumes.

Since our day had been technically 36 hours, we both crashed and need some sleep.