Nirvana: May 13-17, 2016 Bangkok

Bangkok is a huge metropolitan city, where you can do or buy pretty much anything. We only visited the more tame, family side of Bangkok.

We visited the Taling Chan floating market, but were somewhat disappointed as the main eating area was the floating part, with a few vendors surrounding it in boats making food. You could take an overpriced tour of the canal, but the kids said they have been on enough boats, so they weren't interested.

At the kids request, we only visited 1 temple, Wat Pho, housing a massive reclining Buddha and the largest collection of (smaller) Buddha images in Thailand.

Restored and unrestored Buddha statues

These nymphs show poses for relaxation

As the heat kept hovering around 38C, we went to a water and amusement park. Siam Park City, or should we say Wally World Asia, was definitely dated, but very fun.

There was a wave pool, with a very small wave, but the water slides were plenty dangerous. We decided they probably wouldn't be allowed in America. On the rainbow colored straight slide you get going so fast, get airborne on center part, and then land in 1.5 feet of water. Gary decided it was the scariest thing in the park. The circular slide tries to rip your bathing suit off, so I was impressed with that one.

The dry rides were the ones the kids loved the most. They liked the scariest rides the best, the Boomerang, Vortex and Giant Drop. They did get me to go on all of those, but only once. They managed to convince Gary to go on the Giant Drop many times even though he said never again after the first ride. That one was terrifying. The seat climbs up a tall tower, then free falls for many seconds (seems like eternity), before you are back on safe ground.

I love the campness of the traditional Thai deity with the Siam Park mascots

Of course no trip to Bangkok would be complete without a day shopping in the massive malls. Gigi and I had a great time looking at all the unique fashion, we only bought a few things. Gary and Axel went bowling at the MBK mall.

Check out rush hour traffic leaving the malls.

The biggest adventure of the day was taking the canal boat to and from our hotel to the malls. In the morning he wasn't going quite as fast, but by rush hour the driver pushed the boat to go as fast as it could. The canal isn't very wide, and narrows radically under some of the bridges, just big enough to let 1 boat through, but we still went full speed through. Boats going the other direction were going just as fast, so there were huge wakes. Just before one low bridge the driver had to jam the boat into reverse as we were at the crest of a wave and would have hit the bridge. Pulling into the dock it was full reverse, jump off instantly, and the boat was gone.

The last day we spent trying to find a clinic or hospital to get Axel's next rabies shot. Silly monkey, or is that silly boy? Ended up taking a ferry to one of the very nice private hospitals. Then explored the beauty of the flower market.

Tonight we are off to Rome. The kids can't wait to eat pizza and pasta, and not have odd ingredients in their meals. They have done great, trying lots of different food, but I think they are ready for a change.

Cheers,

Julie

As we have traveled around Thailand and Cambodia, the thing that turns me off from these countries much more than the sweltering heat, is the garbage everywhere. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that their water is not potable, so everyone drinks from one use plastics water bottles. There is also a culture of putting everything you buy in 1 to 2 plastic bags even if it already comes in a bag. If you order a drink, first it is put in a plastic cup with a lid, then it is put in a plastic bag. I bought some dumplings, they were put in a small bag, then that bag was put in a larger bag with handles, which gets thrown away almost instantly. So wasteful!

There is rubbish lying around people's houses and no one makes an effort to clean it up. Especially sad, I have seen people throw garbage on the ground at temples and historical sites.

It seems like there is a need to educate the people about putting trash in appropriate places, and teach about using less packaging. But the biggest challenge would be to get the government to collect and manage the trash properly, and repair the water system so people receive potable water in their homes.

And of course the air pollution is atrocious. Even out at the Surin Islands the sunset was beautiful due to all the pollution.