We're in Bangkok now! Wow!, Sunday, October 18, 2015

View of agricultural land near Bangkok.  It was gorgeous

As we descended into Bangkok, this is the view we got on the screen in front of us.  One of the features of this China Airlines plane is a camera under the belly of the plane. So that we could view what was under the plane.  It was pretty cool except that it shut off before landing.  I wanted to see us hit the runway from that view.  The terraine was beautiful with lots of color and cool shapes.  Many fields were flooded.  Should find out more today about what's in the fields and when they harvest.

This river runs along side our hotel.  It is very busy. The floating greens are lily pads dislodged from the river bottom

  This boat is like a taxi.  We saw many of them.  The Hugh motor you see at the back of the boat looks like an oversized truck engine the projection going out behind the boat serves two purposes.  First it has a rudder to steer the boat and there is also a rather small propeller.  They go really fast for the the size of the propeller.

Each hotel in the area had their own shuttle boat to transport it's guest to other stops along the river.  Basically they went downstream to the train.

We walked into another the Shangrila Hotel. The area and found this display of orchids.  Orchids are everywhere and very plentiful

This bowl of lotus blossoms was on a table in the hotel lobby.

Another bouquet of orchids

On one ride on our shuttle we went quite a bit further downstream to the gas station for an end of the day fillup. Note the cute uniform on the mate.

About 5:30 we walked to the night market abut 8 blocks from our hotel.  We were already exhausted, but thought it would be a good idea to go out for dinner and try to stay up till at least nine.  This was the day to deal with the jet lag from our 12 hour time change.  We ate in a small cafe in the market and each had the 3 part special.  This was mine. Noodles, curried chicken (forgot it's real name) and little fried bits of chicken.  The food was very good, but HOT.  The orchid was the garnish.

My big score was at a silk stall we came to right after dinner.  After much dealing, I ended up with 5 gorgeous pieces of silk.  I must photograph them.  One of my goals while here was to buy some Thai silk.  If I don't find any more, I will be happy with the pieces I got.

I think the evening market we were at was the one that was bombed about a month ago.  As we entered it we had to pass through a security check.  It wasn't too sophisticated as I walked through and my hip did not even result in the smallest beep.  This morning we first meet with our guide and I will ask him if this was the market that was bombed. I remember hearing that it was near the city center and hotels.