March 15th, Saturday

What a great day! The trip to Bangkok was not too bad and we started off with a cruise up the Chao Phraya River through the city and up canals and saw wonderful scenic temples and shrines and pagodas. We stopped at Wat Arun – the Temple of the Dawn – and walked around at this amazing site. The next we went to lunch at a first class restaurant and had Thai food that was generally not spicy (except for a few surprises).

After lunch we were taken to the Grand Palace – and amazing complex built by King Rama I – it cannot be described but has to be seen. The pictures I took are awesome, but they don’t do the Palace justice.

Bangkok is a surprisingly modern city – skyscrapers, traffic but mixes in with the historic palaces, shrines and temples. The differences with Vietnam are striking. The major reason for their prosperity is that they have had the same ruler for 61 years and he is popular because his focus has been on improving the life of the poor of Thailand.

Traffic was congested on the way back to the ship even though it was Saturday and our tour guide told us that the congestion during the work week is a major problem even though there is lot of road construction. It didn’t help that one of the passengers on the tour decided she could return to the bus 20 minutes late and hold everyone else up. The highways are big – 8 lanes in some spots and she said 8 million people live and work in Bangkok and it’s only growing more.

The temperature approached 95 during the day with 80% humidity and in the afternoon we were glad to get back to our air conditioned bus between stops. It was bearable in the shade but in the sun you quickly started feeling the effects of the heat and humidity. Apparently we at the start of their summer and were told the worst is April 15th through May 15th when the temperature is 100 90%humidity every day.