Bangkok

We got into Bangkok at around 9 a.m. and spent a very full day there, as our flights out were early the next morning.


This is a cool statue near where we were staying. Elephant icons are all over.


We took a short boat tour of the city and clayt was impressed by the size of the motor running our long skinny boat.


Men on another long skinny boat came up alongside us in the river and sold us beers, but it looks like there was a wide array of things for sale.


Here are some traditional style homes we saw along the river. It was like a whole little town, but instead of streets there was the river.


Things like this we saw everywhere. You couldn't go more than half a mile without seeing another picture of the King or the King and Queen. We passed schools that had giant posters "We love the King" and there were even airplanes at the airport that said the same. The King is really REALLY loved here, and all the places we stayed at had some sort of shrine for him, calendars with his picture, keychains, anything you can think of, they had a photo of the king on it.


Would you like to eat here?


Another giant golden buddha, this one in the reclining position. It was HUGE.


Here I am dropping coins into pans. I'm not sure why, maybe for good luck or an offering to Buddha or something, but I just liked the way it sounded when they dropped in, one by one.


Some nicely decorated stupas (?) outside the temple in the courtyard.


Another scenic shot of the grounds outside of the temple.


This is backpackers central, a road in Bangkok that is chock full of souvenir shops, junk stores, bars and restaurants. And white people. lots and lots of white people. We tried to do some last minute shopping here, but it proved a little stressful as they all want you to haggle for the price. Clayt and I both are not very fond of that system.


This boy was 12 years old and selling roses. If you said no, he would challenge you to either paper-rock-scissors or thumb-war, and if he won, you had to buy the rose. So, Paul agreed to the challenge and was defeated in the first 2 hands of paper-rock-scissors. This photo is capturing his look of defeat.


The is the end of the day, our last full day in Thailand. We found a cool hookah bar to hang out in and tried blueberry flavored sheesha. It was good! It was hard to go to sleep that night knowing we would have to say goodbye in the morning.