Bangkok Thailand

 

We started in Bangkok for a two week cruise to Hong Kong. The cruise didn't start until Monday, so we took the weekend to explore Bangkok on our own. We also visited with some friends from previous embassies who are now working in Bangkok. I think we barely scratched the surface of this big city.

The time on our own was a much better experience compared to the cruise ship's included excursion back to Bangkok. A friend recommended a boat canal tour, which was a great way to experience Bangkok for a first time. We had a hotel in a central area which was in the middle of some impressive shopping malls. These first few pictures are around there before getting to the canal tour pics.

a walkway under the train line

many buildings incorporate greenery in a nice way

Bangkok Boat Tour

heading to the huge Buddha

The Artist House

feeding the fish

Museum Siam

impressive realistic style sculptures

Boarding the Cruise

Bangkok Excursion

The first included excursion was a disappointment. Spending 4 hours in transit to and from Bangkok just wasn't worth it, especially since independent exploring was much more rewarding. Some included tours were good, but skip this one. Lesson learned if we ever take another cruise like this.

Our guide instructed us to go straight through this flower market and take pictures as we walk since we weren't stopping to see anything even though this was supposed to be a tour spot.

The tuk tuks in Bangkok are tourist rides instead of a way to get around like they are in Sri Lanka. They're interesting looking and we had time to look as we waited for the tour bus to pick us up after the quick walk through the flower market.

The temple was nice, but we could have done that over the weekend on our own. If we'd known about the shuttle service to Pattaya every half hour then we would have better optimized our time doing that instead of wasting 4 hours going back and forth to Bangkok. Fortunately this wasn't our only view of Bangkok.

We had a nice riverside lunch before returning to the cruise ship and sailing on to better adventures.

Onward!