Bangkok

Bangkok has been likened to Venice. In fact, I believe it’s called the Venice of the East. However, Udaipur has that title too. Come to think of it, I’ve been to many so-called-Venices – Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Bamberg, Udaipur, Bangkok. I think Saigon, which I will be visiting next week, has a Venice nickname too. But, Bangkok is nothing like the real Venice. The city has a major river going through the center of it with a number of channels reaching various areas. Water taxis are a great way to get around because they’re quick, cool, cheap, and get around Bangkok’s notorious traffic jams.

One of the downsides to Bangkok is the heat. I don’t know quite what the temperature was (probably in the 90s with high humidity), but I was always sweating. To put things in perspective, between 7am and 9pm I drank more than 1.5 gallons of liquid (water, soda, V8, Gatorade and beer) and didn’t use the restroom once. It’s funny – all of the foreigners are dripping, while the Thais don’t break a sweat. I guess that’s because it’s the dead of winter here.

The Imperial Palace

Susannah – Woodson’s better half – arrived today. As Woodson pointed out, she adds a new dimension to our conversations and relationship. Given her arrival and our short stay in Bangkok, we had a full day of activities. We started the morning with a river taxi to a temple and then to the Imperial Palace. We then spent the afternoon exploring some of the city’s temples and a few other things. The city is littered with dozens and dozens of temples. The temples are all fairly similar – pagoda-looking architecture, colorful roofs, tons of dragons and a giant golden Buddha at the altar. Despite their overabundance, the temples really are gorgeous buildings.

Yours Truly at a Temple

The end of our exhausting day was marked with a trip to experience the national sport of Thailand – kickboxing. We had ringside seats to the fight, which featured about ten matches. It doesn’t seem to be overly different from American-style boxing (based on my limited knowledge of the sport) except for kicking – much as intuition would lead you to believe. The bare-footed boxers are permitted to kick their opponents’ legs, torso and head. It seems to get pretty violent. Also, the boxers we saw were pretty young – probably mid to late teens. These kids just beat the sh!t out of each other.

Kickboxing