The Khlong

Saturday was a free day for us.  We heard about the water taxi's on the Khlong that take you around to different spots along the city.  We wanted to go into downtown Bangkok and see some of the sites there and by bus it would take us over two hours.  The Khlong River Taxi was only 35 minutes but its a risky ride, mainly because the river is so polluted and basically sewer water, the smell is horrendous.  When the taxi boat pulls up you and every one else pile into wooden bench seats and slide over, you think that there is really no more room for anyone else at that point but at every stop everyone slides over more and more until you are squished in pretty tight.  One thing we have noticed in Thailand is that they don't have any safety laws or rules on anything that I know of so maximum capacity on a boat is pretty much how many can you fit without sinking!

There is a person taking your money, the ride costs 18 baht about 50 cents.  She or he, we couldn't tell because they are covered with rain gear and hanging off the side of this boat, very precarious! The sides of the boat have big blue tarps that are lowered and raised at every stop by the passengers.  These tarps protect you from the spray from the Khlong but they really don't do a great job we still felt spray.

We arrived at our stop on a main thoroughfare of downtown Bangkok.  Lots of hotels, market vendors and very expensive designer shops, I'm sure for the tourists.  We heard that the Bangkok economy relies heavily on the tourists and with last Decembers takeover of the airport for a week tourists are reluctant to come, so its been down for them and that is reflected in the costs by the local street vendors.