The Folks Come to Thailand

Welcome to Bangkok. Get in this boat and hold on. Don’t leave your mouth open and let river water splash in your mouth, it will make you sick. Keep your hands clear from the edges, don’t lean over to far, and be weary of wayward props.
The construction of a new wat somewhere in the middle of all the "klongs" or canals. Ron claims they have more sophisticated ways of building these days but I know he asked me to take a picture of this wat so he could go back to work and duplicate their state of art scaffolding.
Bangkok’s actually like Venice. Much of it is on water, where boat travel through the klongs is the norm. Thailand’s version of a city built on water is interesting but nowhere near as romantic. No gondolas navigated by guys in striped shirts with big oars; the Thai longtail boats are rigged up with loud engines spinning elongated props, swinging dangerously behind the boat.
Wat Pra Keow. The holiest of holy Thai temples. Home to the Emerald Buddha and a piece of the Buddha’s collar bone. This shot was at the recommendation of our goofy but informative tour guide that hustled us around the wat giving information and directions so quickly we just followed her around and did as we were told.
The Italian gold-tiled chedi housing the collar bone of the Buddha. As our tour guide explained, naughty visitors to the wat pick at the tiles trying to five-finger discount an expensive souvenir.
Tiled roof in the Wat. The tour guide said nothing about this. I just thought it was a cool picture.
A mythical Thai monkey demon or something of the likes. A mythical creature of Thai lore that protects...well, protects someone good. Or was that half-lion, half man?

Half-lion, half-man standing in the wat. Again, I'm not positive about this. But if this thing got in a fight with the thing above it, I'd take the monkey demon, any day.

This guy is guarding some wing of the Grand Palace only accessible to women. Again, our tour guide insisted we get a picture with him. I couldn't help wondering what the guy would have done if while posing for the picture, I just turned around and took off through the door where men are forbidden.

What the hell am I doing posing for a picture with my hand like that? It's a Thai pose that is supposed to, well, be handsome I guess. I've never really understood it and never really asked anyone "why do you do that?" Instead, I just picked it up and do it whenever we've already taken too many pictures and need to do something to shake it up a bit.
Wat Pho, Thailand’s biggest reclining Buddha. We walked the short distance from Wat Pra Keo and some Thai tuk tuk driver told us it was closed so he could take us on a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride tuk-tuk tour of Bangkok for a sucker’s price. What a dick.
Taraneh joins us for drinks on the river. Ron’s drinking coffee to combat his jet lag, Taraneh and I are drinking beers, her to drowned her nerves of meeting my parents and me to test what Beer Singha tastes like on tap.
Fine wine at a hotel way too nice for either of us to be in. But wevacted civil enough to fool everyone there. Then again, even I'm refined enough to know that those wine glasses are way to big. Those are some kind of joke. They are conducive to generous pours though...
Time to win some prizes for the girlfriend. Too bad I suck at darts. What's 20 Baht anyways? Needless to say I didn't win a thing. The prizes were crappy anyways.
Out to dinner at a restaurant along the Chao Phrya river. Thai style food, Thai style shirts, Thai style photos.
The three of us hungry since we didn't find anything 'a-roy' to eat at the market.