Riverboat...the sequel

It seemed easy enough...

A river tour, a lazy cruise through Bangkok on a tour boat...maybe stop for a few Singha's along the way, yep, should be my kind of day!  We had a nice breakfast at the hotel...they have a really nice little spot on the top of the building, with a view of the surrounding area.  Then we got on the Skytrain to go out to the river...ok, a little crowded, it's morning rush hour.  We get off at the stop for the tour boat,  and things turn horribly wrong!  First, we already have tickets for the boat, but it seems to be leaving so we have to hurry...we run down a little wooden walkway (Bangkok has had terrible flooding in one of it's worse monsoon seasons ever!) to a heaving and pitching floating
pier (heavy river traffic), kind of like running on a moving trampolin...in the mean time they are yelling at us to hurry up in Thai (falsetto on helium, and REALLY fast), and we have to make a leap from the bucking (yes, BUCKING, not the other one that sounds similar) pier to a boat that seems to have been released from a gate at the rodeo!  HOLY CRAP...I'm thrown into a world of German tourists with bad hair, and worse socks!  WE'RE ON THE WRONG BOAT!!!  MY WORLD GOES IN REVERSE...we get chucked off at the next public dock...through this I think I know what a bramha bull rider feels like!  Geez, 9:30 am...where's the f------ bar!  So Cassandra, intrepid traveller that she is, says let's walk around here, how bad can it be!  We don't exactly know where we are, but as we navigate the back streets, we find we are in a HUGE auto parts wrecking yard or something.  Couple thousand old alternators here, rear ends there, clutch plates piled high as the ceilings in these industrial
shacks...what a wierd place!  Cassandra say's "hey, you hungry?...I'll bet the street food is great here!"  So, between the half shafts, and the truck rear ends, we have an early lunch.  I know what yer thinkin'...he's bumped his fool head on sumptin'.  It's like shopping...I will say no more!

Anyway, here we were in Bangkok Auto Row

and Cassandra wants to eat!

  We eventually find our way back to the river, and get on with the tour!

  Strangely, Thailand has the odd temple...like, temples everywhere!

 

When you go inside these temples strange things happen...like Cassandra innocently enough sits down to talk to a monk, and he wacks her in the face with a small broom, then tries to make up for it by putting some cheap string bracelet on her, then propositions her!  I wouldn't have believed
it if I didn't have pictures to prove it!

The river has all these hotrod boats with the props way back behind the boat...very cool!  Here's the engine of one of them...others are turbocharged.

 Once you get off the river, you can take these little taxis called Tuk Tuks...and the drivers go like a bat out of hell!

Got this shot just before we went back to the hotel!

Before sunup Tuesday, we were off to the airport to fly to Trat, then took a speedboat to Koh Kood

This is a bridge by the speedboat place

I know everyone knows what I'm talking about so I won't explain where these places are!  Crap, I've been here for 2 days and still don't know where the hell I am!  All I know is it's some small island off the coast of Thailand.

SUCKS!  All day long, this is it!

This is our little hut, and one of many house cats!

 

This is a very long post because I don't have access to the internet...so it's 4 days worth all at once.  Get over it!  Time for a drink.