One Night in Bangkok

Tom and I started our vacation travels in California late August. We had planned to stay in Bangkok for several days on our return to India, but some crisis at the office prevented us from the long stay. However, being the kind of explorers we are, we decided to see as much of Bangkok as we could in one day. We checked into our hotel about midnight. After breakfast, we hired a car and driver.
“Where do you want to go, sir?” he asked.
“Don’t care, don’t know. Take us to all the tourist traps and someplace for lunch. We have to be back by 4. Let’s GO!!!” said Tom the tour guide.

Our driver was one of those cheerful chatty men with a big smile and lots of city knowledge. These guys often drive cabs, I wonder why? Anyhow, he was great and took us to lots of places–mostly temples. Those Buddhists really love temples. Here we are at one of them, or maybe it was a palace. The whole day was a lovely blur.

One of the things I liked the most were all the Buddha statues. There are SO many, you just wouldn’t believe it. Click on the Buddhas page to see BUDDHAS BEYOND BELIEF!!

We sallied on to visit some other beautiful places and gave the 100 zillion other Buddhas a miss. Here is a lovely palace (I think), and all its stuff.

Yours truly on the same bridge.

I love percussion instruments. Tom wouldn’t let me take these home. I wonder why?

The cab driver was getting tired by now. He’d taken us to temples, parks, and lunch. He did try to get us to go shopping, but we were not interested. DRUM ROLL!!! Mona was NOT ready to go shopping! Amazing. I think this is a first for me. He suggested we take a water taxi back to our hotel. What fun! What a great idea. That ride was the best fun I’ve had in just ages.
It was a little too thrilling to get into the taxi. It was rockin’ and rollin’ to the dock and away. The taxi man held onto the dock. Ten or eleven burly gents helped us into the boat. It was hard to get on mostly because we were loaded with handbags, maps, cameras, a little shopping, water, etc.. The main river has many small channels with houses, restaurants, temples, boat yards, and gas stations along the banks.
Many ladies approached our taxi. They were selling soft drinks, snacks, tourist items, fruits, vegetables and anything else a person living along the river might need. Each lady (or gent) wore a really cute sun hat. Here’s the woman we talked to.

Many boys and young men were cooling themselves with a nice relaxing swim. They were all so cheerful and having such a good time. I wanted to jump in myself, it was so hot. I restrained myself and stayed in the boat. The river looks really brown and dirty, but it isn’t. The night we arrived, there was a huge thunderstorm that churned up the bottom. All the green stuff is leaves and branches from trees that came down in the storm.

Hello! Hello! Hi! Hi! All the kids waved at us and were excited to see foreigners.

I was excited to see foreigners myself. Here, take a look at the Water Taxi movie:

Well, that’s all we had time for. Back to the hotel, packing and airport. I’ll be back with the next exciting installment when I wake up.

Suvarnabhumi Bangkok Airport –
The Hub of South East Asia.

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