Exploring Bangkok

We have explored Bangkok the last two days using almost every form of transportation available.

We have travelled by:

Hotel water taxi - a barge that shuttles guests across the river

Sky train - runs on elevated tracks over the streets

Metro - underground subway

Water taxi - used by locals. Boat pulls up, people climb in over the side all along the length of the boat and sit down on benches. A sheet of plastic canvas gets hoisted up along the sides to prevent splashing inside. When you get to your stop, the canvas goes down and you climb over the side to get out. As the boat is moving, ticket girls walk along the narrow ledge on the outside and lean in to collect the fare. For the four stops we rode, the fare was the equivalent of just 40 cents.

Small "bus" - used by locals. It is just a truck with benches in the back.

Tuk-tuk taxi - motorcycle  converted to hold driver and 3 passengers on a bench seat behind him. Named for the tuk-tuk sound it makes. It was fun to zip around traffic in it.

Longtail boat - this appears to be only for tourists. You hire it to take you along the canals. There was a James Bond movie filmed in Bangkok where he uses the long tail fin of the boat as a weapon. Will have to rent that movie when we get back. The motor is a car engine inside the back of the boat with a long shaft extending into the water holding the propeller. Seems to be overkill to have a car engine powering a boat.

Car taxi - bright pink. Road traffic is crazy and the driver honks to tell other cars or scooters to get out of the way.

Foot - We walked through various areas including Arab Town and China Town where we had dinner one night. I had guava juice with my meal while the guys ordered beer and two huge quart-size bottles of Singha beer appeared. Chris and Ryan were not able to make it dis-appear as quickly!

There are so many shops and market stalls and food carts. It's nice that the vendors aren't overly obnoxious in pushing their wares. We walked through some seedy areas right past ladies of the night and even a "lady-boy". Pungent smells abound from all the food being cooked right there in the streets on carts. Bicycles are fitted out with counters holding raw meat sitting on ice and a tabletop grill to freshly cook it up for you. We stopped for some fresh coconut milk from a man that used a machete to chop open the coconut and put a straw in it for us. Ryan wasn't too keen on the coconut milk as it brought back memories of a college trip in Mexico and something about coconuts with rum. :-) 

Our guide took us all over Bangkok with the idea of showing us how the locals live. We saw Buddhist temples and palaces and people placing offerings to Buddha at Spirit Houses. We saw the largest flower market in Bangkok. There is a tremendous demand for flowers that people place as offerings.

We noticed that we haven't seen any of the British people that came on the flight from London with us. They probably headed straight down to the beach area of Thailand to soak up some sun. We will do that towards the end of our trip. For now we are enjoying our exploring.