Boating the Bangkok Canals & then on to our ship!
Bangkok, Thailand |
Bangkok, Thailand
This morning our group hopped on a couple small boats for a brief tour of the Bangkok canals. The day was overcast (mostly pollution, we suspect) and the water is quite dirty. This presents a problem when the boat speeds up and water splashes up and onto me, splashing you lightly in the face. This water was NOT what I wanted on my face! But, on to other things… Early on, they gave us each a huge chuck on bread and stopped so we could feed the catfish that live in the river. Needless to say, the catfish appeared pleased. Houses along the canal are mostly built on stilts and many of them are quite ancient. There is lots of water hyacinth growing everywhere and a large bulldozer actually clearing huge swaths of it out of one area. These houses, too, often have little spirit houses attached at one corner. I am putting comments on the pictures I post, so see individual photos for more detail. Along the way are many Buddhist temples… many! There was even one with a reclining Buddha, similar to the one we saw a couple days ago. Here’s a fun fact that I just learned: depending on the weekday of your birth, there is a Buddha position that is ‘yours’. There are seven, of course. Sitting, reclining, standing with both palms out (calming the oceans), etc. See this link for more information: http://www.buddha-images.com/seven-days .asp. At the reclining Buddha temple, some of us got out of the boat to view the Buddha. There were several buckets of little live fishes and turtles you could purchase (donation) which you could then set free in the river. This is a good thing to do – you are freeing another being and doing a good deed. It’s great for your karma. See the picture of the little eels and then the photo of the girl who had purchased 2 buckets FULL of little wigglers and brought them over to the canal edge and released them! We watched as several people did the same thing. After our canal tour, we were back on the bus and on our way to the docks to embark on the ship that will be our home for the rest of this trip – the Aegean Odyssey. We have about 300 passengers on board and I can’t say enough good things about the ship, the food and the staff – all good. But more about that later.