Feb 14 We are in Bangkok. Getting here was interesting. It started on Thursday. I went to lunch with the BBBC group. Lunch was over at about 2:30. Thirteen hours later I got home and to bed. In the interim was 2 trips to the hospital with a bleeding nose. So I started the trip Saturday morning with my nose packed and instructions from the ER Doc re having the packing removed.
Then on the plane over my iPad died! My new iPad, my reading, my games and my link to the internet and my blog – a catastrophe!
When we had our stop over in Hong Kong I sent an email to Apple support and talked with them from Bangkok today – problem resolved. Thank heavens.
It is now Valentines Day. This morning the hotel arranged for a visit to a hospital to get my nose unstuffed. Canada’s healthcare system could learn something from my experience. We were greeted at the entrance by a welcome desk attendant, she directed us to the admissions desk. No waiting, filled out one simple form and directed to the ER. When we walked into ER there was no line, no triage process and two very efficient nurses rushed to my assistance. Gary pointed out that the nurses were all dressed in starched white uniforms. Once we established why I was there a doctor appeared and after  some questions dealt with removing the packing. He also arranged for me to se an ENT specialist (a third cauterization was done). Plus he conferred With a cardiologist to determine how to deal with the coumadin issue. All this for about $75Cdn

We are staying at the Peninsula Hotel. Wonderful hotel and a room overlooking the river. At night the boats are lit up creating a parade of lights drifting past. Just now we watched fireworks from a barge right in front of our hotel in the middle of the river.

Our tour today was very nice, we visited 3 of the main wats (temples). The Gold Buddha which is a hugh statue of solid gold, the Reclining Buddha and Wat Pho. All were beautiful. My favorite is the Reclining Buddha temple. In addition to the main pavilion which houses this 48 meter long/15 meter high Buddha there are several other structures with hundreds of smaller buddhas, a series of “pagodas” that house the ashes of royalty and a number of interesting Chinese sculptures. The Chinese art is there because of the old trade with China. Thailand (then called Siam) would ship food to China and the ships would bring back ballast which turned out to be these statues and in some cases broken pottery which was used to decorate the temples with mosaics.

Another barge arrived with more fireworks, it feels like they are going off 5 feet away.

We had a trip on one of the touring speed boats. They are shaped like a Venice gondola, bigger, with hugh motors that stick way out of the water. Gary thinks the motors look like old car motors rigged to power these boats. Getting into and out off the boat was an interesting exercise as the are no real docks and we had to either climb way up or take one giant step down. We also had a trip on an old rice boat (a real touristy thing) during our boating we explored the canals.

The canals go through housing. Everything from broken down shacks that look like a mild wind would crush them to large houses both traditional and modern. The canals are dirty, with garbage floating in them, yet we saw people fishing and swimming. Our guide said people also bathe in the canals.

No pictures today, Gary did fill one card but we are too tired to go through them tonight.