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Published: March 4th 2007
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Bandits
Bandanas have become a daily necessity. I just realized the abbreviations for Bangkok and Brooklyn are the same. BK.
We took the sheraton ferry accross the river and then the skytrain over to the Jim Thompson House Museum. Jim Thompson was a CIA agent who fell in love with thai culture and decided to stay on after the war. He is known for revitalizing the thai silk industry and mysteriously vanishing in the mountains of burma never to be seen again. The tour of the museum wasn't particularly informative about his life but did explain the thai achritecture of his home and his collection of art work .
Once out of the museum we decided to try and take a klong boat as the thais do. The first came in and many people quickly hopped on and off not sure what was customary and due to our hestitance it left us standing like dumb "farangs". The second one came in and having gained some confidence we quickly boarded and took the only remaining seats. The boats opensides are covered with tarps and boat hand ride on the outside openeing them at each stop.
We were planning on going to Temple Mount and were
making our way over when a seemingly nice innocent thai man stopped us and asked us where we were going and informed us that the temple was closed untill 3pm. He then told us that today was a special promotion day and the tuk tuks were all getting free gas and so only charging 20bhat (less than one dollar) to take people around to 4 wats. Even having read about these types of offers before our trip it seemed too good a deal to pass up. So off we went in search of a tuktuk. Before we even reached the corner we were offered a ride and told again about the promotional offer. Our first stop was a beautiful giant standing buddha where we were given a few cadged birds to let free. Next we stopped for free gas, then another temple of somewhat less grandeur then we were asked if we would like to go to a famous tailor shop, um not really. He insisted great deals beautiful suit. yeah no. Then he came clean, he is given a vouchers for taking tourists to various participating tailors jewelors and such. He asked us to just go in and look
Bangkok Skytrain
they have tvs on their trains... around and given that we were still getting a pretty good deal, we obliged. The next day we met a couple from jersey who took a similar ride and were forced to go to 2 tailors and 3 jewelors. After another less than inspiring temple it was 3pm and we had our driver take us to Temple Mount which of course had been open to the public all day.
Temple mount was the highest point in bangkok until a skyscrapers were built arround the city. To get to the top you climb a ton of stairs circling around the building. Reaching the top it was all worth the breeze and view of bangkok.
After the temple mount we took a ferry back accross the river to the royal barge museum. Not really sure of the location, we found a sign for the museum leading down a alley. walking down the alley we realized we had discovered a part of bangkok not seen by many tourists. all along the 4ft wide alley were shacklike homes and stores. even a beauty parlor and laundromat. Feeling a bit like we were trespassing we continued on down the winding alley being led
by museum signs about every 150ft. After about 20 minutes we emerged on the banks of the river right infront of the museum. The royal barge museun contains some of the kings fleet of ornate boats which are taken out on high holidays and for serimonious occasions. It also contains some older boats that were damaged during the war.
At the peir of the museum we hired a longtail boat to take us on a tour of the klongs (canals off the chao phraya). Lots of thais live along these klongs in homes some shacklike and some masion life. The new home along the klongs were impressive. I like the idea that having money to build a home they would rather build along the somewhat impovrished klong and preserve that way of life rather than move to a new part of town. After a very full day of sightseeing we sat back took in the view on our longtail back to the hotel.
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SOOOOOOOOOOBEAUTIFUL
iTS LIKE READING A PROFESSIONAL TRAVELOGUE. I REALLY ENJOY YOUR COMMENTS. eVEN GETTING A SMALL SENSE OF THE CITIES. SO HAPPY YOU HAVE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO THIS JOURNEY. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVE MOM