Letter 3 (Dave)

Counting Mom's letter as #2. . .



Won't have Internet connections for at least a few days that I know of so I thought I would capture a few notes on today.



We toured and hiked around Bangkok today.



We began with the Temple of the Golden Buddha. It is one of the many massive temples here and in this case, a massive Buddha to match. Lots of people were there too. It is one of the most famous of the many Buddhas that are around. All temples seem to be well cared for and are very ornate.



We then hiked around the markets of Chinatown in Bangkok and viewed the temple there. Another ornate presentation in multicolor. All of the ingredients of a crowded market were there with items for the residents.



Noting the problems between the Hindus and Christians in Bangladore, Thailand was historically Hindu but Buddhism gradually took over with about 95% of the country following that faith. But we did see one historic Hindu "swing" this morning. Part of the ritual was swinging dangerously from pillar to pillar. That has now been outlawed since 1933 since there were too many accidents. This is very tall gate like structure.



Then we viewed the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. This guy is 150 feet in width -- reclining remember? -- and strikingly gold in color. How does one photograph that? It is over 200 years old.



We then had lunch on a barge in the main river that runs through Bangkok. A nice buffet. Hunger has not been a problem on this trip as we consume quite a variety of Thai cuisine.



We are well at this point though a few of the group have "gone down" with some kind of bug.



We now have the later afternoon at leisure so I am writing this and doing a film inventory. I've discovered that I've averaged 72 shots per day thus far on the trip. With the amount of film I have left, I can't average any more than 51 shots per day. I really thought I had enough along. So today, I was more disciplined. We would like to copy Mom's memory cards to a CD and than have her start over. But a place to do so is not easily available right now. And tomorrow we leave Bangkok so that will be more difficult.



Well, that's a quick one for now.