Bangkok

I left Pattaya for Bangkok late in the morning of the 9th. I had originally intended to go to Chiang Mai for 5 days instead of directly to Bangkok after leaving Pattaya. The news convinced me to do otherwise. It was the off season in Thailand when I went mostly due to the fact that it was also monsoon season in much of Thailand. Chiang Mai this year was have more rain that usual as far as I could tell and reportedly many of the streets and rivers were flooded making travel difficult, and the rain making it nearly impossible to spend any time outside let alone do any trekking around to get pictures. This being said I decided to head to Bangkok early and spend some time seeing things there. My previous plans had only included enough time in Bangkok to go Bumrungrad Hospital to have a complete health checkup, as well as some dental work and other various health related things and fallow up appointments. I rented a hotel room near the hospital near but still fairly close to some of the shopping areas. This turned out to be a good thing as the next day after my arrival my ear began to bother me again. I did manage to get out and do some sight seeing but by the end of the day I was in quite a bit of pain and running a fever and decided that I would go to the hospital and get some medication for it. The following day I didn’t see any reason to get up early so I slept in late and then walked to the hospital set up an appointment and waited for the time to come around. After not to long of a wait I was taken to see the doctor and was given more medication for my ear only this time I was also give a regime of drugs. The next day I was pretty much down and out and just took it easy in my room. This whole ear thing was beginning to be much more of a problem than I thought it could have been, and was now taking up too much time. The first two things I got to do were to go see the floating market and go for an elephant ride. The floating market is as it sounds a floating market more of less. I arrived too late in the day to see the floating market at its best or peak as I learned from some of the men at one of the boat taxi stops. They said that early in the morning there are so many boats that its very difficult to move around, the boats are all carrying shoppers or those selling there goods. To try to describe the floating market it self is kind of hard, but it is like this. There is a whole section of the city that is accessible nearly only by boat, there is a large network of narrow waterways, and canals leading in and around plots of land and cross connecting to other waterways and eventually leading to the water market itself. The further you get away from the market the narrower and more chocked with vegetation the waterways become, the closer you get the more they become like highways for boats. The market itself is sort of like a small city all on the edge of the waterways, small plots of land separated by the waterways with buildings built right over the edge of the water. The shops are selling all sorts of goods from souvenirs for tourist to locally grown food that you cold see in the fields or orchards on your way to the market, to soaps and shampoos, to freshly baked bread. At this point in my trip I hadn’t really done any shopping for souvenirs and figured this was probably a better place than most and so I picked up a few things both for myself and for my family. When I was ready to go my driver made our way back through the canals to the place we had started from. There my taxi was waiting for me, to take me to my next destination of the day. The next destination was an elephant trek, not knowing the city myself I would simply tell my taxi driver what I wanted to do or when I wanted to go. As for the elephant trek, knowing that there were many around but not knowing which are better I simply told my driver that I wanted to go on an elephant trek, and so that is sort of where he took me. The place he took me did have elephants, and you could ride them and they did walk through some trees, but I would hesitate to call it a trek, it was more like a track. The area he took me to was probably about 10 acres in all surrounded by local suburbs and fields. The “jungle” path was an overly warn path that was more mud than anything and had so many elephant foot prints that they were beginning to form ruts in the ground. One of the interesting things I did notice while riding though was that for one the elephants had the path completely memorized and could probably walk it blindfolded with there trunks tied behind there backs. And two was that they used the same foot prints of the elephant that walked the path before them, so that there would often be one distinct set of foot prints that were very well worn. This made a good deal of sense to me as the path was so muddy using the same foot prints as the previous elephant made walking easier due to less resistance and you were assured much better footing if someone else had already checked out that spot and walked there first. I was somewhat disappointed though, and felt sort of jipped because this fell very short of a jungle trek on elephant back and the whole path only took about 15 minutes to traverse. I had been wanting and expecting a trip that would take at least a few hours and go further into some natural jungle than the neighbors back yards that the path was backed up to. This was just another one of those spots that was put in place solely for tourists and really didn’t have any real feeling to it. It was in fact so fake as to go to the extent that they had constructed a few fake thatched buildings that were unused, unlived in and were barely an attempt to simulate what you might find if you were really to see some of the outer country of Thailand. They also had piped music along the entire path simulating the sounds that you might hear if you were actually in a jungle environment. But so many of the tourist spots are like that, that it is often hard to find the good ones, and this is often what the Thais have come to expect the tourists to actually want. All in all thought it wasn’t a bad experience and I did get to ride on the back of an elephant. So when that came to an end, I went and caught a late lunch and returned to my hotel which was hour a half ride from where we were. The next day or two I took it easy still not feeling all that great and mostly did a little walking around and sightseeing fairly close to the hotel. My first planed trip to the hospitals was on the 13th and I had planned on spending most of the day there. That was the day that I was going to have all my checkups done as well as initial appointments for dental and dermatology and eye exams, granting that it could all be fit into one day. The morning went fairly well with the blood being drown, endurance tests, x-rays, ultrasounds, and all the other fun enjoyable tests that doctors like to do to you to make sure you’re still alive. I had missed breakfast so as lunch time rolled around I went to one of the restaurants in the eatery there in the hospital lobby and orders so food. After lunch I hade a few more appointments to keep including a dental exam and cleaning. The dentist that I had was a rather nice lady and after she had done my cleaning asked me if I wanted to repair the few cavities that I had now, or if I wanted to come back tomorrow to have them fixed. I answered that I would just as soon get it all done in one day if possible. With that she set to work drilling and filling my teeth. During this process I began to feel a little sick, but assumed that this was due to the fact that I couldn’t help but swallow a little of the pasts and other things the dentist was using as well as the fact that I was having my teeth drilled on without anything to kill the pain. There really wasn’t all that much pain but it wasn’t pleasant either, she had given me the option to use local pain killers, but the needle seemed like it would probably hurt more than the drilling. Anyways by the time it was all done I was felling a little nauseous, but didn’t give it any consideration figuring it was a byproduct of all the tests and dental work, and so headed back to my hotel. Later that evening back at my hotel I was beginning to get even sicker and I began to suspect that I may be getting sick. I ate a dinner just fine, but later that night it became obvious to me that I wasn’t getting sick, I had in fact gotten food poising, and of all places to get it, I had got it at the hospital. This was of course a matter of some annoyance to me though now there was nothing to be done about it. So at this point I now had an ear infection that was still troubling me and, now food poising that would ensure that I couldn’t go anywhere for the next few days. Of course the next day wasn’t much anyways it was just fallow up appointments but the fact that I had to go through all of it feeling sicker than a dog didn’t make it any more pleasant. It only took a half day for me to finish up the follow ups and I spent the rest of my day relaxing as much as possible in my room, and just watching TV. The following day being my last day I was determined to get out and see some more of Bangkok sick or not, and really by this day I wasn’t felling sick anymore, I just had the problem that I couldn’t be far from a lavatory. This turned out to be one of my better days in Bangkok and I managed to get around a see quite a bit. The first place I got to see was Wat Yai Chaya Mongkol, one of the many ancient temples in Bangkok and the first of two I would see this day. The pictures on this page will describe it far better than my words can. The second temple I went to see was Wat Chaiwatthana Ram. I spent quite a bit of time at both of these temples just wandering around looking at the different things and taking pictures. The first temple was still active or a used temple so to speak as there were people that came there for there religious ceremonies, where as the second temple was not so much. The second temple was also much older than the first and this could be told in both the style of building and the state of deterioration, almost as it were more of a ruins than a temple. In route from the first temple to the second temple I also took a ride in a boat that went around part of the city of Bangkok via the river system. The river system is an integral part of the transportation system of the city moving not only people but also large quantities or cargo via barges and other cargo boats ranging is size from paddled canoes to full sized ferries and tugs and every size in-between. One of the things that sort of captivated me about the rivers was the number of boats that served as houses or restaurants or hotels. They ranged in size and condition but all held a certain fascinating and intrigue for me. Why I don’t particularly know, but I was drown particularly to the older weathered boats, or the more oddity ones where they were being held together by scraps of tin and wood and looked as though they should have sunk years ago. All in all this day had turned out to be a rather good day, and by far the most picturesque day of my time in Bangkok. The next morning I had to wake up far to early as my flight from Bangkok to Singapore left at 8:00am. And that more or less concluded my vacation.	Waterways on the way to the Floating Market. A woman taking her good to the market for sale
	these boats are used to shuttle people to and from the floating market but are not allowed inside the market area because they a re too big. the passengers will have to disembark and find a smaller boat to take them around the market.
	Shops along the way to the market, these are usually selling local produce or products.

	Many Houses and shops by the cannels are built like this one on stilts, unfortunately some of the poorer families can not afford to have such nice accommodations and there houses are built directly on the ground.
	This is how many of the shop keepers attract there customers, especially if they are foreigners. They simply reach out with these rods that they have attached some sort of hook to and pull you in. This can be very convenient if you actually want to stop as the boat driver then doesn't have to maneuver the boat or fight the currents. on the other hand it can be quite inconvenient if you have no desire to stop, because your going to anyway.
	This is the fireplace or stove if you will that they use for cooking down the sugar cane as well as all the other cooking they do.
Car garage for those that live on the waterways.	These ladies are making candies from sugar cane. you cant really see in these pictures, but there is a continuous swarm of bees around these ladies and the candy. if you look at the first few rows the candies the look like they are black aren't, they are just covered in bees.
There are many many shops like this lining the waterways of the floating market. as I mentioned earlier you can tell that I arrived late by the fact that I was momentarily the only person going through here, earlier in the day it would have been packed with boats both buying and selling things.	Yep, all those black things are bees, if you look at the bowl in the back ground you will notice that it looks rather dirty. Its not, its just covered in bees, fortunately for all they are rather tame and more interested in the sugar than is stinging people.
	People selling there produce, some areas of the floating marked tend to have more of one item or category of items that others. This was in the area that would more or less be classified as the grocery store.

	Yes earning money to stay alive is a whole family business.


	You cant escape commercial advertising not even here.
Outside the market and throughout the waterways and cannels people are still trying to sell there good some going from house to house.
When sitting on top of these creatures you really begin to get a good idea of just how big they really are, its also a neat experience to sit on an animal this large and feel it moving beneath you, you kind of feel like a little kid again when your father or one of your uncles would carry your around on there shoulders.	Path through the "Jungle" on my elephant trek/track.
	Ok these were real thatched building that were being lived in unlike all the fake ones they put up you can tell by the poor condition, the hodgepodge of items used to build them ,and the washed clothes drying under the porches.
	Wat Yai Chaya Mongkol. This is the first of the two temples that I visited.



Believe it or not the monks were a rare thing to see this day so when i saw this one walking by the Budas I had to get a picture.




This started my watery trip around part of Bangkok.	Yes this is a houseboat, quite literally, though they seem to have all the necessities, notice the ever vital TV antenna.





Wat Chaiwatthana Ram, the second temple I visited.