Day 69 Laem Chabang, Thailand

Tuesday, sunny and nice. Tied up at 6 am this morning. Met with the local agent after breakfast. We had to sign a lot of documents here. The agent drove us into Bangkok, about an 80 mile trip each way, and stayed with us the whole day. We visited the Ancient Siam heritage park, full of many old shrines and pagodas. The park is laid out like the country, with 116 points of interest. Later, we saw the gold reclining Buddha. It is very large. Seems like a block long. Thailand is 95% Buddhist, so there are many temples and shrines throughout the country. We got a quick look at the old cannon museum, in front of the Ministry of Defense building. Drove by it twice. If you have seen the James Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun, you know about the klong boats, shaped like a large canoe. The propulsion is provided by a truck engine on a swivel, attached to a 12 foot shaft, with a weed-wacker propeller on the end. Yes, of course, we had a ride through the klongs. I didn't get to steer, though. Oh well, they won't let us steer the ship either. A klong vendor even tried to sell us a carved elephant, or a variety of other things. Was offered a Thai kick-boxing demo, but we declined.

Dinner was provided by the beautiful and generous Ai. Some of us had Singha beer and we all shared shabu-shabu, a Japanese communal meal. Ate with chop sticks! Stopped at a shopping center on the way back to the ship to spend our last baht. Ended up with 3 Thai coins. We were back to the ship by 2130. Text on signs is often written in beautiful script with small holes in the end of strokes, which makes the words look like the copper traces on pc boards. I saw birds today, for the first time in days. Saw one when I first looked out my window. Later, I saw white birds that looked like egrets. Saw a few dogs around. Saw one cat.