Our first event on the trip was a boat ride on the Chao Phraya river, the main river that runs through Bangkok. Well, most of the trip was spent on a canal that cuts through the city connecting two different sections of the river.
We didn't have the fastest, most colorful boat, but as we moved I was glad we weren't in one of the fast moving boats. . .I'm not sure how those passengers actually saw anything. As it was, even though I saw some water monitors, we moved too fast for me to get any photos of them. They look a lot like the land monitors we saw in Africa.
The banks held a variety of buildings, some beautiful, many rundown. The house are, for the most part, right up against the canal bank, with some temples sprinkled in. I would have thought canal front property would be in high demand, but from the looks of many of the houses, it didn't seem to impact the quality of the house.
Multiple houses had beautiful flowers, making for colorful views. Twice we had to stop at very small dams (used to prevent flooding) to wait for it to open.
We came out of the canal right at the Grand Palace of Bangkok. When you are an old guy with a bad knee, getting out of the small boat with a low roof on it wasn't the most graceful thing I've ever done, but I managed.
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