Adventure #142

On our last day in Bangkok we ride the sky train downtown. We walk to Wat Pathum Wanaram, however a man tells us they are praying inside. So he makes us follow him all over the compound. He tells us all about the area. I cannot understand most of what he is saying, except that we walk through a space with a lot of trees and he says, "Have you ever seen trees this big?" We just smile and politely say no. Our tour ends with him asking what our favorite numbers are on a license plate because he says he will play the numbers in the lottery.

After our tour, we walk down the road to visit the house of Jim Thompson. So during WWII Jim Thompson was stationed in Thailand and enjoyed it so much that after the war he came to Bangkok to live. He was an architect and built an amazing house that still looks the same as it did in the 1950s. One interesting thing about Jim Thompson is that he started a silk company in Thailand that is still in operation today. Something even crazier is that he mysteriously disappeared one day. What? So we tour his house (in our socks) which is super cool. Of course no picture taking inside.

After visiting Jim Thompson's house we walk to the Mahboonkrong Center, which is a huge mall full of flea market junk. I mean this place is impressive and confusing. We wander all over and stop for lunch. Matt has minced pork with noodles and I have shrimp with fried green beans.

Then, we take the air train to the outdoor weekend market. There is so much to look at and new foods to try. Between the two of us we eat a smoothie, a kebab, a coconut drink, and coconut ice cream. We also buy some chop sticks, a sweet oil painting of elephants, and Matt scores on a new watch. We are making our way back to the air train when it starts pouring rain. We use our umbrellas but still get a little wet. I am only concerned about keeping my new painting dry. We make it back to our hotel to shower and pack our bags. Unfortunately we have to leave a day early since the flights are not looking good to go home. We eat some dinner down the street from our hotel and stop for foot massages. Seriously it is the best thing ever after walking for three days. We go to our hotel for a nap and I say nap since our shuttle picks us up at 2:00 am. Our flight leaves at 5:00am. We are given seats though and make it all the way home.