Our one day in Bangkok got started earlier than planned -- I woke up after 3 hours of sleep, wide awake & off kilter from the time change. Bobby managed to get 5 hours in, and we felt great and ready to start our busy day in the big city of Bangkok. Anxious to see the sites, we hustled down and went right out for a taxi, when we were immediately faced with some obstacles. Nobody seemed to understand a word I was saying, as I guess I was a fish out of water. The destination was the Royal Thai Air Force museum, and was just 3 miles from our hotel, and I was anticipating
this to be common knowledge. Uhhh, no. So, after 4 different people looking at me with funny expressions and attempting to translate, we figured it out. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand that I'm the guy speaking the funny language, not them -- after all, I'm on their turf. It was just entertaining as I had never really had so many people throughout the day that had such limited or zero English in their vocabulary. In speaking with our guide later in the day, the schools here haven't been teaching English widely until the last 10 years or so.


The Royal Thai Air Force museum was cool. Not one other visitor in the place, and many planes, jets & helicopters from Thai aviation history spanning back to 100 years ago. Now, as we were walking around the exhibits, the nice lady working there approached us and said to follow her. So, we did, and then she says to jog. We clarify (as there's been some interesting communication thus far), did you say "jog with you"? Yep, that's what she said. And, there we were, going from plane to plane, jogging for exercise. Not sure the intent, but it looks like she was getting her daily exercising done, and we were along for the ride. We each went our way, and we continued checking out the various aircraft. Then every 10 minutes or so, here comes our jogging museum guide ! Gave us a few chuckles.


From there we went to the famous Chatuchak weekend market, and that was incredible. It's estimated to have over 15,000 vendors in an area covering 27 acres. Very cool, and we had a good time exploring for a couple hours. We indeed did get lost, and everything starts looking familiar, but isn't. We did have a meeting place in case we got separated, but that would have been interesting as I couldn't even find the meeting place shortly after ! Before going to our Thai Canal tour, we made a quick dash using the SkyTrain to get over to the National Stadium area for a visit to the Thailand National Scouting store. I had specific directions and location, and despite being right there, it took 4 different people each giving me wrong directions and obvious translation issues to finally get us to the store. So, after that mad dash, we get to the store to find out they are closed ! Ughhhh. I communicated with the store in advance, to clarify their Saturday hours, open until 5 PM. Except, just not THAT Saturday, since it's around the holidays ! Oh well, we were prepared to check out the Thai Scouting goods and Bobby even brought some USA patches to share. Didn't work out.


We had a Thai Canal tour on a longtail boat, through the residential areas of the Thon Buri region of Bangkok. It was a nice tour, and our tour guide, Tao, did a good job and is a nice person.
Also visited the Temple of the Dawn as well as 2 others that I don't have names handy right now. Very impressive temples. (I'm getting tired after a 16 hour day in Vietnam today, so I'm cutting the story telling short).


Lastly, our day ended with the classic Thai Boxing event at Lumpini Stadium. Personally, I'm a lover not a fighter :-), but it seems like the thing everyone should see once while in Thailand.
We stayed for just 4 of the 10 fights, and the first 2 ended with the young guys being carried out of the ring -- one that got completely rocked, was knocked out cold and carried off limp on the stretcher, and the other wheeled away with a dislocated shoulder. When you weren't thinking about committing a violent crime due to the non-stop "snake charmer" sounds every second of the evening (not even recorded music, the guy played it right behind us the entire night), people got loud & excited when the fights got pretty rough. While I haven't hit a person in my life, and am certainly not a boxing fan, I suppose to a certain degree those rough hits are what we're all there for ! A strange fascination, right ?


Great day, and a busy one for sure, in Bangkok. Huge city, with something like 17 million people, and in one day we have no clue what the rest is really like. Just scratched the surface.
Onward to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam.