Asia & Australia : Casual Bangkok

We had an easy morning in Bangkok. We did not get out of bed until almost 10am - it was so nice not to be in a rush to go somewhere. I puttered in the room and guess where B went? To the post office of course, to buy Thai stamps! LOL! The hotel offers a free tuk-tuk so we decided to take it once around the block. It was a very short ride and then we went to Starbuck's. We opted to take a real tuk-tuk down to the river and ended up at the 5 star Shangri La Hotel, where we had stayed 15 years ago on our first trip to Bangkok. We are at the Holiday Inn Silom this trip and I must say, B made a great choice - it is wonderful to explore Bangkok and come back to a luxury hotel. All the staff greet you with "Sawadeca", clasping hands prayerfully while nodding the head. We try to return the gesture, but I think they giggle at our attempts...
I wish you could experience smells and sounds in the photos. The whoosh of the traffic, the on-going tweet of the policeman's whistle, the vromm-vromm of scooters keeping their engines warm, the hum-silence-whir of a motorcycle as it changes gears and the constant chatter of 10 languages as you walk by folks in conversation. Particularly grating is the high-low pitch of Thai ladies as they shout out "masss-agge" or "fru-its"... Then there are the smells which go from cloying, sweet oils as you pass massage shops, to the scents of charcoal bbq and meats roasting, continuing to stroll you will also sniff the unpleasant odor of sewage as it wafts up from the streets every couple blocks. Bangkok is a big city, but there is something inviting and comfortable about it. It is a city of contrasts, old to contemporary and everything in between. Tonight we will take a dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya River and see the sights at night. Enjoy these photos for now and I will post the river cruise ones later.