Bangkok

I'd been avoiding Bangkok for four months, but finally decided to stop there for a while and have a look around. Here's the email:

BTS Skytrain

I've begun exploring Bangkok using the skytrain and the ferry service down the Chao Phraya river. The ferries are good fun. They're these long narrow boats that pull up alongside the concrete and steal docks. As they approach the driver shimmies the back-end over and his assistant jumps off and ropes the dock.

Life on the Chao Praya

But the driver can't see what he's doing from way up front so his assistant uses a whistle to chirp out codes telling him what to do. This system is pure entertainment as every other time we stop, the boat slams into the dock. Sometimes quite hard. But that's why the docks have old tires on the side.

On one such ferry this morning the driver overshot the dock and then backed into it with a bone-jarring thud. There's was no tires on the part that he hit. Why isn't the seabus this much fun?

I wandered through the Samphaeng textile market today which consists of a large twisted maze of narrow back-alleys. I'm having a suit made while I'm here so I was researching the types and prices of wool, and just generally harrassing the merchants with my notepad and my questions. After a while I walked into a shop and this guy turned to the manager and said in Thai "this is the foreigner who speaks Thai". I'd managed to establish a reputation in the market in under two hours. Sweeeet.

There's this conman on Charoen Krung street (where a lot of tailor shops are) who passes himself off as someone who works at the Oriental Hotel and wants to tell you where "the good tailor shops" are. His pitch is pretty lousy, but I'm fascinated by his ability to just materialize beside me from out of nowhere. I've started looking inside the stores on that street trying to figure out where he comes from.

Scott

Bangkok Pictures...