A little ride down the river

Bangkok is dubbed "The Venice of the East", so suffice it to say, I took more than just one little ride down the river during my trip to Thailand. Thank goodness Dad brought his seasick patches with him because it seemed as if we were always on a boat. Not a problem for me. I love the water.

Our first taste of a ride on the Thai waterways was a boat ride through the klongs, Bangkok's canals. We floated along to see family homes, temples, and the way of life in Bangkok.

At first, I was shocked to see such run down homes in the capital city! In the States, properties along the river would be the best, sitting on prime real estate. This did not seem to be the case in Bangkok. Houses were leaning, sinking, and falling down. Louis, our tour guide, explained that the appearance of the house did not necessarily indicate that the family did not have enough money to purchase something more stable and beautiful. It is just not as important to them. In Thailand, education, healthcare, public transportation, and electricity are all free. Because of this, even the poorest people have televisions! You cannot judge the income of the family on the structure in which they live.

As we cruised along the Praya Chao river, we stopped to visit this:

This is Wat Arun, Temple of the Dawn.  Its 260 foot spire has been identified with Bangkok. This temple is steep so nobody attempted to climb the stairs to the top!

After leaving "Venice of the East", the boat rides continued. One of the highlights of the trip was taking a 3 hour ride down the Kok River from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai. We boarded our longtail boat early in the morning and began our journey from one city to the other.

We were freezing,  our butts were sore (no real cushions on those seats), but by the end, we had arrived in a new city with more to explore.

PS: There is a little challenge in the blog world called the A-Z challenge. The idea is to write everyday except Sunday using a letter of the alphabet. I probably won't be able to keep up with daily updates and my readers might get blog fatigue, but I am going to try my best to meet the challenge. Stay tuned.