Views of Bangkok

After 25 hours of travel, we arrived at the Reno Hotel in Bangkok. A curious little place with two desk clerks with somewhat annoyed dispositions, giving us the business about our prolonged two week stay. The room is adequate, all the same, with A/C, in-room potable water, a cheap Taiwanese TV set, and two beds seemingly recycled from a Thai minimum security prison. But the pool - oh, the pool - makes the morning transition so easy.
We hoof around town for quite some time. The city sprawls with no end in sight. New buildings are being erected at every corner. Laborers, hundreds of the them moving about the job sites, some wading with no footwear whatsoever in ankle-deep clay and mud slurry, work feverishly. I'm not sure there are unions or OSHA here in Thailand.
On the city streets, mopeds scurry by at fantastic speeds, often traveling perpendicular to traffic. Most don face masks. To say pollution is a problem is most likely an understatement. Food is sold everywhere. Dried squid, grilled flat fish, skewered pork and all other protein imaginable cooks, smoke wafting into the streets from sunup to 1AM. Fruit, juice and coffee stands share the real-estate of the streets. Papaya, watermelon and pineapple artistically carved and placed on neat beds of ice, the colors so vibrant that upon seeing you salivate. The vendor quickly chops the pieces of fruit, slides it from a handmade funnel fashioned from galvanized steel into a plastic bag, and skews it so that you might enjoy your little snack on a mini harpoon.
Canals, subways, monorails, cars, mopeds and Tuk Tuks deliver some estimated 13 million people to their destinations everyday. Tuks Tuks are a strange apparatus. One front tire, two rear tires attached to a small, loud 4 cycle engine, these makeshift carts on wheels wind up quickly and typically get you through town relatively quickly. But on a number of occasions, with temps in the 80's and humidity the same, 3 grown men packed into the back of a Tuk Tuk, caught in gridlock traffic, is an unnerving experience. The air at ground level is saturated with exhaust. For the necessity of health, we get out and walk the rest of the way.
Waterways split the city into many quadrants. Some long, flat-bottom boats meander, selling all types of food and goods. Other boats, fixed with 350-horse Chevy big block engines, roar down the canals, the prop attached to a 30 foot drive-shaft and directly and skillfully manipulated by the boatman. Much poverty exists along these waterways. The water is the color of cement but this is the city's fresh water supply. Children swim, adults wash, and the city pumps its waste.
The markets are a sight to see. Our intern says they are hectares large. I tried to recall - is a hectare 20 acres or 100? It doesn't matter - there is no possible way we could see all merchants in one night. Endless shopping with tables teeming with consumer goods. Linen and Thai Silk, Zippos and keychains, wooden crafts and all types of textiles, etc., etc., etc. Thank God for the intern. Aut saved me 120 Baht on a Che Guvera magic wallet. A necessity at $1.80.
The Land of Smiles is an amazing place. And with a newly minted Democrat President back in the states, its easy to see why the masses here are also cheering for Obama. After all, these are the people that produce many of our goods; millions of people working for a few dollars a day and many functioning in a society of shared ownership. Each happy to greet us with a smile and a laugh, except for perhaps the hotel staff at the Reno Hotel.