Chao Phraya is the river that runs through Bangkok. There is a public boat-bus system set up called the Chao Phraya River Express. I was picturing something like the Grand Canal in Venice where there are basically three kinds of boats–gondolas, bus boats, and others making deliveries. I was also imagining a formal ticketing system (like Venice) where you purchase a ticket before riding the River Express. Finally, I figured the boats would be clearly marked as part of the River Express (maybe they are marked in Thai–but there are no Roman letters to be seen).

Not so on all counts. First of all, the boat “bus” stops are nearly impossible to recognize. They are dilapidated, mini piers with no signs getting you there and only one sign once you are there (visible only from the river). The people working on the piers are trying to sell you a ride on one of their boats, not the River Express. The River Express is 9 baht. Their boats are 1,000+ baht.

To make matters worse, there are dozens of different kinds of boats landing at these piers. No announcement is made when the River Express lands. There is no time schedule posted, etc. The River Express employees make no announcements when they arrive or depart. You merely have to know that you are getting on the correct boat. The boat pictured above is the correct one.

The boats arrive and depart without warning. If you don’t immediately get on, you will not be getting on. It’s that simple (or frustrating depending on whether you get on the correct boat or not).

We took the River Express (there is nothing “express” about it by the way) from Pier 1 (Oriental Pier) to Pier 9 (Tha Chang Pier). Even though the water is seriously polluted, and we had to stand the entire way, the ride was somehow refreshing–much cooler anyway than standing or walking around Bangkok in the middle of the day.

A few temples (wat) can be seen from the river. One is Wat Kalayanmit, pictured above. The boat pictured in front of this temple is a long tail boat, which you can rent to cruise the Bangkok waterways or to get to one of Thailand’s many islands.

Another of the temples that can be partially viewed from the Chao Phraya River is Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn).

Once we arrived at Pier 9 we found ourselves in the middle of a shopping/eating center of sorts. We had brunch at the place above. There are few other places in the world where a family of four can all be happy with their meal and the bill come to less than $10 total.

Posted on January 1st, 2010 under Thailand. Tags: bangkok, food, people. Comments: 2

Our kids were tired after our first day in Bangkok so we left them in their room while we went out to get some Thai food to bring back. Strangely enough, it took time finding Thai food. There were plenty of Indian, Japanese, and Italian restaurants near our hotel, but we walked a while before finding the stall pictured above. We picked up some Pad Thai and Tom Kha Gai.

The kids were more tired than we had thought. They were sound asleep and wouldn’t answer their locked door or phone when we returned with dinner. We had to get another key from the front desk in order to get in their room. They were there, sound asleep of course, and they were too far gone to eat with us.

Suzy’s food was good–especially if you like things spicy. It is just off of Silom Road, down a little alley, between the Holiday Inn Silom (where we stayed) and Patpong, on the Patpong side of Silom Road.

This was the gate to a Hindu temple (Sri Maha Mariamman or Wat Khaek or Maha Uma Devi) on that first evening’s walk.

And here is a shot from the inside of our room. The hotel was not bad for the price, but hotels in Bangkok are generally cheap. We got the rooms through Priceline, which saved us a bit of cash. However, Priceline rated the Holiday Inn Silom Bangkok as four stars. I’ve stayed in better, three-star places to be sure. While the rooms weren’t expensive (although they were on the high side for Bangkok where you can get a room for under $20) everything in the hotel was. For instance, breakfast, which we didn’t ever try, was ridiculously priced considering you can eat breakfast in Bangkok for under 60 baht (< $2). The internet wasn't free, or even reasonably priced, in our room or at the business office in the hotel. The kids took full advantage of the pool every day though.

On our first full day in Bangkok we headed to the Chao Phraya River, a five-minute walk from the hotel, to catch a boat up to the temples. The above picture isn’t of the boat we took. Finding the correct boat was confusing. More on that tomorrow…

Posted on December 31st, 2009 under Thailand. Tags: bangkok, food. Comments: 3

I imagined Bangkok to be so smoggy that we wouldn’t ever see blue sky. I don’t know if we were just lucky, or if the skies were normal during our three-night stay, but we had blue skies and white, fluffy clouds until the day we departed. The above photo was taken from our taxi on the way from the airport to our hotel.

We arrived in the late afternoon on a Sunday. There is a “weekend only” market called Chatuchak which is only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We got on the Bangkok Skytrain after checking into our hotel to get to Chatuchak. We arrived at about closing time. Some vendors were closing up, but many were still open. The crowds are smaller and the temperature not quite as hot so going at closing is not a bad idea.

Some vendors had a sign saying “no pictures” so when I saw the above from far away I took a zoomed picture in case there was such a sign when we got closer. It turns out the above “fruit” is actually all fake.

There were plenty of other colorful stalls though.

The selection was endless and the prices were good.

Posted on December 30th, 2009 under Thailand. Tags: bangkok, clouds, skywatch. Comments: 1