Images of Thailand

After returning from Khorat, we stayed in a remarkably-well-run and comfortable hostel in the center of Bangkok. There, at the aptly-named British ex-pat bar, The Pickled Liver, we ran into some U.S. Embassy staff and British IT entrepreneurs, and played a few games of a local card game called 22 ... suffice it to say that the game was won by the person who invented it ... no money was lost.

Below, some parting images of Bangkok:

Every train station had a policeman on the platform, and every policeman wore a mask against the sooty air.

Monks are everywhere in Thailand, where most young men are encouraged to enter a temple for a few years to bring good luck to their families; seats on the buses and ferries are reserved for the monks, who depend on charity.

Bangkok sits astride a river, and transport takes many forms, from ferries to smaller boats like this. That's probably an automobile's 6-cylinder engine, driving a prop at the end of a drive shaft.

They love their king in Thailand, and expressing the sentiment on clothing, posters, and billboards is par for the course.

Women can also become "nuns," but do not enjoy as high of a status as monks. Here, three walk down a stall-lined street.

There are market stalls on every square inch of Bangkok sidewalks, many selling shirts, shoes, and, as noted in an earlier post, plastic objects. Here's a typical display. Imagine these, wall-to-wall, for blocks and blocks and blocks, with just a meter or so of passerby space to walk.

If it's not clothes, shoes, or plastic items, it's food. Here's a food stand of banana leaf-wrapped delicacies, cooked over charcoal.