A river runs through it

Our final day of touring has come around so quickly.  To round out the Bangkok experience we booked a longtail boat ride through the Khlongs in the old Capital of Bangkok - Thonburi.  Before getting there the little boat travels up the Chao Praya river which always has some great things to see.

Petrol station

Long tail boats

Thonburi was the third site of the capital from 1767 to 1782 after Ayutthaya was lost to the Burmese.  Many people still live here and I truly think that no where else here in Bangkok shows such stark contrasts to the way people live.

Of course today it decided to rain so we took off under very cloudy skies.  Shortly into the trip it started to rain which was only a minor inconvenience really.  The journey though the canals took about an hour and half way into it we stopped to feed the catfish outside one of the temples.  Well jaws eat your heart out - these fish are thriving here as they are not able to be fished up near the temple.  We fed them some bread and they splashed so much that Don and I got soaked from them.

We saw some other wildlife too that are quite common in this area - monitor lizards.

As the rain was starting to get heavier we had to put off getting out at Wat Arun, Temple of Dawn.  This is another beautiful temple, covered with pieces of Chinese porcelain and seashells which were found in the first trading boats from China in the early 1800's.  As we didn't get to stop Ill put in additional photos of what we missed - taken on my last visit in 2008.

2008

2008

Once back on dry land we went off in search of food and also some art supplies for Anna - we got both so all round was a good day despite the rain.  We had planned to have a grand dinner over at the Marriott Hotel but alas they had a special function on and we had to miss out unless we wanted to eat at 9pm!.  So, we went back to the regular spot and although the food was great yet again, it was no buffet.