More family fun in the streets of Bangkok

And I'm back! The adventures that my family and I had have gone untold for too long and I'm sitting down tonight with the intention of sharing a few more of them. I don't know how far I'll get. I get the feeling that it'll be a long process documenting their trip.

We woke up on our first day in Bangkok fairly early despite not falling asleep until roughly 4 am. I was awake sitting in in bed and I heard a faint knocking at the door and opened it to find my mom standing out in the hallway in her pajamas. We roused the rest of the troops and headed out for breakfast. Our breakfast that morning began one of my dads favorite meals - chicken-on-a-stick (and fruit). Outside the hotel, there were several vendors selling different things and we decided to have some grilled chicken, various assorted fruits and sticky rice. Awhile later, making our way to the river taxi, we headed off towards Taryn's office. Taryn, the lucky girl that she is, had to work that day and was at the office already. We went up into her office, met some of her co-workers and then went to lunch near her office. Taryn went back to work and we did what all families would do if they could - we got a massage while we waited for her to finish! I introduced my family to the wonders of the cheap Thai massage. A little shopping and walking and it was back to the hotel for a dip in pool, dinner and then we hit the sack. We all were pretty exhausted (setting a trend fr the days to follow) and slept well that night. The next few days were spent in Bangkok exploring and getting to know the city. I found out quickly that I had to change my tried and true method of exploring a city as my family (my father in particular) weren't diggn' it. What I'll do is simply wander around a city until I've seen everything that I've come to see or run out of time. I'll look at a map every now and then but for the most part I'll simply wander. We started out that way. I led the way and we were off. Our objective that morning was the Queen Sirkit Snake Farm. Located near (maybe even within) Chulalongkorn University, this is a research institute dedicated to snakes and, in particular, developing antivenoms for snake-bite victims. We walked there (it looked closer on the map) and got lost (because a road was missing) and were all hot and tired by the time we got there (but, as I like to point out, we were on time and did, in fact, get there). They have a daily snake show at 11:00 followed by a 'milking' of the snake. The snake show was interesting. They had a good variety of snakes and the presenter had a very good personality. The milking of the snake is an important step in making the antivenoms. They'll essentially force the snake to release its venom (hence 'milking') and bottle it. The antivenom is created by injecting a small amount of the collected venom into an animal such as a horse, sheep, goat etc. The animal will then have an immune response to the venom and will begin to produce antibodies which can be collected and stored to use in case of snakebites. After we got there we continued our adventure towards the Jim Thompson House. Jim Thompson was an American who served in Thailand during WWII and eventually settled down in Bangkok after the war. He is said to have created the Thai silk industry, which was steadily declining when he set up shop, and opened Thai silk up to the world and received a tremendous response. He established several factories in Bangkok and was on his way to the top. He designed a house (he was educated as an architect) which was modeled on several different styles of Thai architecture and had it built in Bangkok. During a trip to Malaysia, he disappeared and was never heard from again. Jim Thompson Silk is still some of the best silk in Thailand (and was used for most of the clothing in The King and I) and his house is now a museum. The house is located in the heart of Bangkok and so is very convenient. I've wanted to go for ages now and hadn't yet gone and so when my family expressed interest I jumped on it. I've been meaning to go for so long (and with several different people) that I actually bought several postcards and sent them to the people I had previously discussed visiting the house with declaring that I had finally gone. We then had lunch at a little street-side restaurant and climbed on board the BTS (the elevated light rail system in BKK) and headed to the weekend market. The heat and the large numbers of people made this a rather low point for the day and we quickly turned around and headed back for the cool and inviting environment around the pool. A lazy evening and dinner found us ready to call it a night.

I haven't yet really talked about our meals. I have to say that the meals that I shared with my family while they were here, despite their being fairly mundane events, were some of my favorite moments. I've always enjoy meals with my family and they've been a large part of our time together (we actually eat three of them a day!). Growing up, we always had Sunday dinner together. I remember one Sunday when Taryn and I were enjoying the freedom of her newly acquired drivers license and came home late (missing dinner of course) to a very angry family (mother and father in particular). They usually prove to be very entertaining and stimulating. Our conversations are vast and varied and there is usually at least one joke about how old Dad is (while he may be getting old, joke about his age never seem to). Right before I left, we took a trip to Hawaii and the same can be said for that experience as well. The most vivid memories that I have from the trip are mostly connected to different meals that we shared. So while I may gloss over the meals, they were a significant and meaningful part of their trip.

And that's enough for tonight (or at least for now). Maybe I'll sign back on and knock another day off the list...who knows. Anything can happen. And pigs fly too.

RM