Gone skiing

There is a reason why Bangkok is now considered one of the world's great travel destinations. It is simply a most fascinating place. We started our exploring with a ride on the sky train(the Chid Lon station is right at the end of the block). Of course to get to the station you have to go through the Central department store and shopping centre. Here you will find a big food supermarket, upstairs in the main floor with miles of cosmetic counterswith all the familiar names (including MAC for your Canadian readers) out the otherside and up the stairs to the sky train station. N and K have, as perfect hosts, already provided us with sky train passes. These operate like a smart card, and money is deposited on the card ahead, and you simply enter and retrieve the card, coming and going. This is, of course,miles ahead of anything currently used by the TTC.
We ride around up on the train, getting the feel of the centre part of the city. This system and the sky walk below have simply been added to the city life below. We then leave the train, walk through a shopping centre called Paragon. This is a truly "high end" store. The cosmetic floor is so big, Selfridges in London would pale by comparison. We head out the door on the other side, and walk about two blocks. Suddenly all the stores are small, the people on the street probably not going to shop at Paragon, and we are waiting as the crowd assembles to make a mad dash across a very busy intersection when the lights change. Most of the traffic stops to let you pass but you do have to be very careful of the many buses making a right hand turn just about the time you reach the half way point. That mission accomplished Norm takes us to a little wharf and we hop a klog boat which is part of the transport system. To be honest you don't actually hop on, but crawl over the edge moving quickly as this boat is not going to wait around. And believe me when I say this little exercise bears no resemblance to getting on and off a Venice vaparetto. This is the mode of transport used by all those working folks who are not forking out for the sky train! The klong trip is startling... people are living right on the water in crowded conditions, bathing and swimming! and waving as you go by. This trip transformation takes all of ten minutes from the time we leave Paragon. So it goes with Bangkok. You are always bombarded with images that change from one thing to a complete othere. Still the people seem very content, there is no evidence of the coup anywhere. The only people we have seen in uniform are those trying to direct traffic.
We have been to some really great restaurants, some a little more expensive, some decidely not so. We went to a French restaurant called La Bouchan, recommended to N and K by a hotelier on their trip to Phuket. The food was wonderful and the location was on a street right in the middle of the livelier part of Bangkok where the "ladies of the night" and the bar scene rules.
We have been twice to hear the wonderful jazz at the Oriental Hotel's famous Bamboo bar, and finished the nights at their river bar looking at all the lights across the way, and the boats all lit up sparkling on the river.
All for now. Time to go for dinner with another feast at home. I will finish my tales of Bangkok, and of His Majesty, tomorrow after we get to Hong Kong.
as ever Katie