Our first week in Thailand has been fantastic. The visual is hard to describe in words so this will probably be a very long post.

The traffic is nuts. So many cars, buses and trucks, then throw in tuk-tuks and scooters galore whizzing around all of them. Apparently none of the traffic rules apply to scooters. They run the lights, squeeze between and around everyone else including pedestrians and drive on the wrong side of the road winding through on-coming traffic. We've taken the train, the bus, taxis and tuk-tuks (and of course lots and lots of walking). We have not tried the scooter 'taxi’ given we want live to continue our trip. It’s amazing to see a woman riding sidesaddle on the back of a scooter while texting on her phone while the driver is weaving amongst the traffic.

Apparently North America does not have a lock on consumerism. There are 3 malls in a one-mile stretch close to our hotel (should I be worried that Dessa picked this particular hotel?). When I say mall, I mean MEGA mall. The first is Graysorn an Ultra upscale mall with LV, Dior, Boss, Zegna etc. Next-door is Central World. It is the 6th largest shopping complex in the world, with 550,000 sq. meters over 7 floors, including a 10-screen theater. While it is not as upscale as Graysorn, it is easily as nice as the Dallas Galleria (since it also has an ice skating rink) and includes small show rooms for most of the top end cars (Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Maserati, Porsche, …). Right next to that is Siam Paragon, with all of the high end, name brand, specialty stores you could ever want. It has an aquarium and a 15-screen theater, both holding claims to "the biggest" in Asia.

These last two malls each contain 2 floors almost dedicated to food including full grocery stores (think Central Market). Our food courts don't hold a candle to the options found here and at least half of the stores are focused on sweets all beautifully decorated and displayed (even the donuts at Duncan Donuts). Given we are trying to be good, choosing has been very difficult. We’ve sampled a variety of the local baked sweets – each wonderful. The most original was probably the Smash Ball. It’s a hard cookie covered in chocolate about the size of a baseball, which you crush with a rubber mallet before eating - it took Dessa 3-4 swings to make it happen

The contrast to home when you step out onto the street is huge. There are street vendors everywhere cooking, hopefully, fresh food at their carts or selling almost anything you can imagine for very cheap prices. In some places the sidewalks are almost impassable with the vendors taking up most of the space and the people trying to shop or pass through. The smells can be overwhelming, and often not in a good way. It can be very dirty, with trashed piled in random areas. Electric lines are old school, hung low with hundreds of lines converging at the intersections in a massive jumble. The exhaust and noise from the traffic just adds to the chaos. That said, it is a colorful and vibrant city and we are loving it. The Thai people are very friendly. We are easily identified as tourist so we are often approached by locals asking where we want to go and offering suggestions and directions. At first we thought they were tour guides trying to get a customer, but that does not seem to be the case, they are just trying to help. This is not something we have seen in other countries.

We have visited Wat Pho, Wat Arun, Jim Thompson's house (a museum), Wat Saket, The Grand Palace, The Golden Mount, Loha Prasat, and a floating market. At the temples you must cover your legs and shoulders, and remove your shoes to enter. This meant I got to shop for a new skirt and a pair of loose drop ****** pants similar to what Justin Bieber would wear. Men are also wearing them (the pants although we did see one guy in the skirt), so I think Bill should get some too (the pants, not the skirt). We have walked miles everyday. Hopefully that will compensate for the giant beers and all the sweet treats. The first few days were fairly mild, but the last couple days have been hot and humid. Not Dallas hot but with higher humidity. And of course in Dallas we wouldn’t be trying to walk outside 5-6 hours per day.

The Wats have been great to see. There are some common themes to decoration and lay out but each still has its own unique aspects. Luckily we visited two of the temples when some monks were praying, their chanting was wonderful. The Buddha’s themselves look very similar (in part because we don’t understand the significance of hand position or other small changes). However, the room decorations vary widely. At the Golden Mount we found two temples that had an astrological/space theme vs the more traditional flower or historical scene decorations.

We have tried to mix it up this past week between Wats and other sites so we don’t get overloaded on Buddha (who not surprisingly is everywhere J ). One beautiful day we walked to nearby Lumpini park. It was a wonderful escape from the city with lots of people walking or jogging on the paths around the lake (very Central Park-esque). It even has an outdoor gym for the iron pushers and an area with various machines for circuit training. We wondered for a few hours and at one point watched a pair of 3 foot Monitor lizards fight over a large frog that one of them was trying to swallow. We finished the day at a roadside stand for some Pad Thai and another large beer for Dessa - $5 total.

Jim Thompson house was another change from the temples. He was an ex-US spy in WWII who became a successful silk merchant and art collector. He disappeared mysteriously in a Malaysian jungle in the late 60’s and his home and collection of Thai and Chinese art has been turned into a museum. The $3 entry fee included a brief tour, which was pleasant and informative. The house was interesting but the surrounding garden was great and we spent a fair amount of time taking pictures. Speaking of which, Dessa spent the first few days patiently waiting while I took (too many) photos. She took some with her iPhone injecting the occasional Selfie’s via her new pole. She was generally dissatisfied with the results compared to what I was getting (not really that surprising given I was using a Canon DSLR). This of course led to the decision that she needed a new camera and one that had to be Selfie friendly (easy to take and with a flash for night time selfies). I wasn’t confident in our ability to meet those needs but off to the mall we went. Clearly she isn’t the only one with these requirements as several newer models had an the LCD screen that flipped forward so you can see what you’re framing. There was even a Samsung model that would actually take the selfie when you winked at it.

Dessa chose the Sony Alpha 5100 mirrorless camera and loves it. It’s light, quite compact and takes great photos. We also bought her a new pole for more selfie variety. She has already moved beyond the auto function to using various scenes and other adjustments. Most important though is she now has her own photo agenda and isn’t waiting (patiently) for me. In fact, I’ve had to wait for her a few times. Now that we both have good cameras we are taking a lot more photos and so will be posting a lot more pictures. We will put the "beauty" shots at the end in case you are not too interested in our am amateur flower and insect photography.

We have had a few comfort meals but for the most part have been enjoying the local street cuisine. We have tried so many: fresh fruits, fried bananas, marshmallow tacos, fried potato spiral, coconut chicken, spring rolls, sesame cookies, awesome grilled fish, pineapple rice, prawn balls, ... Dessa has decided the local way to carry your drink in a small plastic bag is the way to go and we will be introducing this to the US on our return. Last night we discovered we weren’t supposed to drink the water in the hotel room - Oops! Fortunately it hasn’t really caused a problem but we will stick with bottled going forward.

We’re looking forward to another week in Bangkok as there is so much still to do.

PS: This blog service limits the size and resolution of the pictures to conserve space. For much higher resolution versions of our photos and some additional shots, please go to:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bill_and_ dessa/sets/72157650174187212