In the midst of Bangkok

Transportation here can be accomplished by almost any means.  Our favorite is water taxi.  A rough and tumble carnival ride in a Chao Phraya river full of traffic.  The taxis zoom into each stop like an  Indy pit stop, throw the thing in reverse and hit the throttle until the boat slams into the dock.  The stop at each pier or dock is long enough to drop off and pick up passengers.  This is done as quickly as possible.  With the dock moving up and down, the boat moving up and down, the first mate yelling go, go, go in Thai, we disembark or hop on in record time.  Stops lasts no more than 10-20 seconds.  There could be 30-40 people in the mix.  A stop of 30-45 seconds would be a lifetime. 

Water Taxi

In addition to the water taxis, there are long tail boat taxi’s with a propeller on the end of a long shaft, boats from many of the hotels, regular taxis, buses, mini buses, Tuk Tuks, trains, and subways.  Then there is the Death Wish 3 or Speed Demons from Hell way to go by getting on the back of a motorcycle or scooter. Women in a dress or skirt ride side saddle as the scooter careens in and out of traffic as fast as possible.  Pretty easy to get around here, but you do have to pick your risk level.

Everybody works here...at something.  It’s the Thai way.  You just don’t see people panhandling much here. It’s a rare occasion.

Many, many Thais sell food in carts. Most locals here eat street food, which I gotta say, is some of the tastiest food I’ve ever eaten. It’s a mouth watering experience, walking down a side street of a food market, particularly in Chinatown.  The fragrance of curry, hot oil, spicy noodles,         fried rice. From the iced tray below, the process is to pick a seafood, then choose one of 10 different ways you would like it cooked...and bingo it’s in front of you on the plate in ten minutes.  We had the whole salt-covered Red Fish stuffed with lemon grass and garlic, OMG it was good. For dessert? Fresh coconut in a sweet bread.  I nearly died......

Iced seafood tray: fish, lobster, scallops,
Prawns, squid, clams.

Chinatown with it’s traffic, busy(ness), and great
Food

Red Fish.  We ate one of these.  DEElicious.

There is a water taxi below and a tug boats pulling 4 barges.  Each barge is full of rice and they follow each other up and down the river with on their way to load the rice or down river to unload it not larger ships or truck for the local area.  Thailand is the number one rice producer in the world.  More later.

  

Water taxi and barges full of rice.