Bangkok
Bangkok served as our home base for this trip. We had the use of friend Jim Lackey's condo at Lumpiniville in Bangkok, and we returned there from our trips to Chiang Mai, and to Siem Reap and Hanoi. Below are some of the things we did when in the Bangkok area.
The Canal Tour - We booked a day trip with Thai Tour Guide and that included several different things to see. The first activity was to take a tour through part of the Bangkok canal system.
This is a good shot of the long-tail canal boat that we were on. These boats use automobile engines and are steered using a large tiller. This is the largest canal, where the tour starts and finishes.
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The Flower Market - After cruising the canals, we stopped at the Bangkok Flower Market.
Selling flowers
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Royal Palace - Third on the day's list of activities was the Royal Palace, a.k.a. the Grand Palace. According to Wikipedia,the palace is the official residence of the kings since 1782. We were quite impressed by all the gold and the architecture.
We are just entering the Palace, and Sharon is wearing a wraparound skirt that they sell you outside the entrance for about 100 baht. It seems like a scam because she was already modestly dressed but they seem to get every non-Thai visitor on the way in.
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Wat Pho - Included in our day trip was a visit to the Reclining Buddha, called Wat Pho. It is a Buddhist temple complex in the Phra Nakhon District, directly south of the Grand Palace.
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The Mall Ngamwongwan - We spent quite a lot of time in the local mall and in transit between Jim's place and the mall. Sharon had a lot of problems with Thai food because of the heavy usage of MSG, so we frequented the Sizzler (in the Mall) which stated that there was no MSG in anything. Here are the shots along the side street behind the condo and inside the Mall.
It wont mean much to anyone else, but this is the view we saw every time we left the condo and walked over to the Mall (in the beige building). It was a short walk but after a few trips it started to feel like home in an unfamiliar city.
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Jim Thompson House - We had a bit of time to kill so went looking for things to see in Bangkok. We settled on the Jim Thompson House because it wasn't hard to get to, and we took a few shots while there. It was interesting but not a big tourist attraction!
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