Longboats and the Jay-Jay!

We started the day in a wooden longboat, cruising the Chao Phraya river canals. We had a boat to ourselves that bounced through the big swells, through a loch, and into the calm (but busy) canals. Private homes ranging from falling down shacks to magnificent teak traditional Thai houses stood on stilts over the murky water. Children splashed in the boat wakes and the occasional morning glory harvester waded in chest deep waters. We boated to the Bangkok weekend floating market where we bought delicious street foods- satays, spring rolls, fish balls, sticky rice and coconut and a bunch of other things I don't know the names of. With full bellies and a sixer of Singha beer, we headed back to the pier.

From there we took the skyrail and subway to the Chatuchuk ("jay-jay") weekend market. There are hundreds or thousands of stalls selling everything you could ever need. This is where the locals shop and there are deals to be had for the wiley "farong" (foreigner). For US$30 I bought 2 dresses for me, a dress and a top for Addi, 3 barrettes, a pair of gorgeous sandals, a funky bracelet, a charcoal rubbing from the Wat Pho temple, a popcicle, 2 waters, 2 beers and probably something else that I am forgetting.

Addi fell in love with a little bunny barrette which I reached out to grab just as the vendor (and all of those around her) folded up and ran away. Turns out there are some illegal vendors with spotters for police and they are exceptionally fast movers when they need to be! Once aware of it, I saw this happen over and over again- something impressive to see, really!

Bonnye, Addi and I headed home while Jim, Greg and one of Greg's buddies went out for a night I won't blog about. You'll have to ask them yourselves! ;-)

The SD card in my phone is telling me it's damaged so all of my pictures are lost (I am REALLY hoping we can recover them!) so I will upload photos to this post from Jim's camera in the next few hours.

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