Bangkok Markets and Ocean World

A lovely, leisurely start to the day here in Bangkok. First stop was a taxi ride to Chatuchak Weekend Market. I was looking for the spelling of it on the web and came across the above image that you can print off and give to your taxi driver so he knows where you want to go. I feel quite safe with Chrissy as she can now speak enough Thai to be able to give instructions and converse with the drivers.
The market is huge and divided sensibly into sections so all the antiques are all together and that sort of thing. You could wander for days to see the whole lot so if you see something you like you need to get it cos you will never be able to find it again. I bought a few things and even manged a bit of bartering with Chrissy there to give advice as to the procedure. It was quite fun. Chup kahn ka.
The place is swarming with all sorts of people. OSH would have a field day with uneven paving slabs and no-one to tell us to, 'mind the gap' but you just watched where you were putting your feet and kept your head up.
Things were really cheap but unfortunately the lovely blouses were all made for littler girls than me. Next step was a trip on the sky train to Siam Paragong Shopping Centre.
The Siam Paragong Centre reminded me of the showy Hong Kong shops- very exclusive. This is me at the opening display- notice the heavy homeless person's coat is missing- it's pretty warm.
The Siam Ocean World is a magnificent thing with stunning aquariums which gave a good workout for the new camera.
One of the scene settings pre-sets is to use 'available light' rather than the flash which turned out well in most cases.
I had never even heard of water rats as being a real creature before and I loved them- about the size of a heavy set cat- socialable and busy.
The little video will give you an idea of what water rats are like.

The huge aquarium was stunning as well.
Then the underwater walk through like Kelly Tarlton's- very calming and blue. I could sit and watch for ages.
Allanah K- shark whisperer!!!

After the aquarium we had a look at a 4D movie based on the Apollo landing on the moon- it was very cool- you really did feel like you could reach out and touch the characters. The 4D part of it was the seats rocked and moved and air blew on you in relevant scenes.

We caught the sky train and taxi home for a pizza and a movie. On an interesting note catching a taxi from the Samakee compound is interesting. We go down to the gate passed the five or so guys who are hanging out making sure of something or other then Chrissy waves at a guy a couple of blocks away who hails a taxi. The hailer guy comes down on a scooter and we give him ฿20. Then the taxi comes and we are off.

To come back from somewhere we get a taxi preferably on the move or if from a queue you might have to barter. Yesterday's taxi guy took Ben by the hand to take him to the taxi. Being from NZ this had me slightly alarmed but Chrissy explained that this was actually a good thing. Thai people are very careful and caring of their children and people are way less likely to take advantage of you if you have a small child with you as they would never do anything to put a child in harm's way.

On another note related to taxis the politeness rule for traffic. I saw this really noticeably coming home yesterday- the taxi had to pull out to make a right turn from a small side road onto a busy four laned highway. In NZ you might take a life time to do this or you might have to go left and do a u-turn later to go right but our taxo driver just edged out and people made a gap. Same thing if you want to make a right turn across the other two lanes into the small street. It really was a magic thing to watch. There is definitely order among the chaos if you can see it.