Bangkok, a City of Contrasts, Bangkok, Thailand

As the capital of Thailand, Bangkok is a city of contrasts. From ultra-conservative wats to raunchy sex shows; from opulent palaces to dilapidated homes, Bangkok has these extremes and everything in between.

Flowing through the heart of Bangkok, the Chao Phraya River passes many of the city’s historical sites. We used a ‘hop-on, hop-off’ public ferry which was a convenient and inexpensive way to get to most of them. It’s not always the fastest though. The ferries are large, sometimes carrying over 200 passengers and some of the skippers are very young and inexperienced. The skipper for our first trip of the day was an awful driver. He sped to each pier and then forced the motor into reverse to try to stop. Instead of stopping though, the ferry usually floated past the pier. He then tried to steer in reverse but was never able to get to the pier. Twice he had to circle around and try again. When he finally reached each pier, the ferry slammed into the pier so hard we were rocked in our seats. Eventually we made it to our stop, the fourth pier, but it took twice the time as scheduled. We did wonder if we should have used one of the more expensive tour boats. In the end we were glad to never see this captain again. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).