Day 51 Bangkok, Thailand

What a stark contrast to our visit to Viet Nam and Cambodia. Our excursion into Thailand made me feel like we were back in the States as we were on the road to Bangkok. A modern four lane highway comprised mostly cars. Gone in large part were the motor bikes that swarmed like flies around the roads in the other countries. Granted our view was limited and may not be representative, but what we saw was nice. There were nice housing developments that looked like normal neighborhoods. The city itself was a modern metropolis that had sky scrapers and modern office buildings. Running parallel to the road we were on was their sky tram or elevated rail which also looked quite nice. In the city it was an interesting mix of modern buildings and Asian style architecture. I assume this is a result of their national religion of Buddhism.
Thailand was called Siam until 1936 when the King decided to change the name to Thailand which means "Land of Freedom". Their largest industry is Gem cutting with tourism coming in second. We visited a jewelry manufacturer and gem operation.
One thing was made very clear to us and that is the film "King and I" is banned in the country. There are a couple other customs that we were informed about. First do not pat or touch someones head as that is considered rude as is pointing with your foot. Additionally, you should not raise your foot higher than someones head because that too is considered very rude. Our driver introduced us to the phrase "happy room" which means bathroom in our lingo. I don't know why it is so happy.
All in all from what I saw Bangkok is a lovely modern metropolis that is competitive with many U S cities. There was a warning on CNN this morning that there could be political unrest in Bangkok today which caused us a little concern. As it turned out we saw no signs of any problems.
Tomorrow a day at sea.

Chris - "The King and I ...and me" One place we visited today was Royal Palace. Mind you there are about 10 buildings on the grounds of the Royal Palace including a former residence of the King. The Palace and it's grounds are exactly how I pictured the buildings to look. Beautiful gold and jeweled encrusted spires and lots of ornate figurines. The King no longer lives there as his ancestor moved the residence after his brother was assassinated in the Royal Bedroom. King Rama, who lived there, was the King who Anna taught English to and eventually resulted in the movie, "The King and I." It was real clear from our driver that the Thailand people are not fond of the way the King was portrayed in the movie. Our guide blamed it on Yul Brenner and he was most upset about the fact he said etc. etc. etc....(and that the King didn't say that) and the fact that they had the King dancing. Never mind that the King was portrayed to be a barbarian, he didn't mention that. As Paul mentioned, they banned the movie from being shown or sold in Thailand.
We got to see the Royal Palace from the river as well, as we cruised the main river in Bangkok. In addition to other Temples we cruised past fishing villages right on the water, they did have houses, but they were very primitive and small. We also saw a fair number of military ships moving up river at a very high rate of speed, could be because of the potenial unrest. One other note. Viet Nam said that English was their international language and taught in their schools. Cambodia and Thailand mentioned people spoke it isn't their main language. Yet, the signage in Viet Nam included no English and in Cambodia and Thailand most signage had both English and their language...interesting.