Something completely different! The description is an excerpt from one of my many letters to my parents, who lived in England. I wrote long, weekly letters for endless years, from various countries in which we lived or travelled to/through. My mother carefully saved every letter and postcard that I sent and, years ago, I received them all back. Of course, I have kept all the originals, but I also spent years typing every letter. Eventually, I made a huge set of cerloxed 'books', one for each year (each one roughly half to three-quarters of an inch thick), starting on 3 October 1966, written from Doha, Qatar, Middle East. Then I printed out a copy of each book for myself and to give to each of my three children. I was sure I had posted a photo on Flickr of a set of these books, but no sign of one.
"Our flight from New Delhi was supposed to be at 1:40 p.m.; we eventually took off at 7:30 p.m., due to trouble in refueling - I believe a spare part was needed. This was extremely annoying because, apart from cutting down our time in Bangkok, it also meant that our flight was at night and we saw nothing of our journey. Flying time from New Delhi to Bangkok was three hours forty minutes, by DC8 plane.
We arrived in Bangkok about 2:30 a.m. local time on September 9th, and as we weren’t in bed till 3:00 a.m., we slept till the afternoon. Our hotel, the Montien Hotel, was only opened in February and it really was a marvelous place, with excellent service. Drinking glasses in the room were sterilized and wrapped, and the one day the towels in our bathroom were changed three times! Even the toilet roll was folded into a beautifully neat pointed end!!
The following morning, September 10th, we spent looking round the hotel shop, and our purchases included two short sleeved casual shirts, one made from Thai cotton and the other from Thai silk. Also got a Thai silk tie and a length of Thai silk material for me to make into a dress. Both types of material are rather attractive, even if the colour does seem to pour out of them when washed!
At 2:30 p.m., we were taken on an afternoon’s excursion from the hotel to what is known as Timland; we were the only people who went, as September is not the tourist season in Thailand. As I said on a postcard, Timland is an area, not built originally as a tourist spot, where all sorts of Thai ways of life, etc. can be seen within only a small area. We spent two and a half hours wandering round displays of rice growing and threshing; rearing of silk worms and the manufacture of silk and the way in which it is woven into fabric; Thai musical instruments; Thai art; elephants hauling teak logs; a huge crocodile; monkeys; fish and snakes, including vipers and a cobra. One could also have a huge python wrapped round one specially for photos - no, we didn’t! During the afternoon, several “shows” were put on; Thai wrestling, cock fighting, sword fighting, fish fighting, Thai classical dancing. This was a very artificial way of seeing Thai life, but an excellent way for people able to spend only a short time in Thailand. We certainly left Thailand feeling that we knew quite a lot about its people.
Another early morning, 6:15 a.m. and we set out on the 11th ready for a tour of the Floating Market of Bangkok. This tour, starting at 7:15 a.m., took us by boat along the river and canals for hour after hour, and we had an absolutely marvelous time!! No tour could be more interesting or enjoyable. Both of us normally detest the idea of organized tours and prefer to wander round on our own wherever we want, but we have been extremely lucky with the few tours we have taken. The canals were so fascinating; houses on stilts along either side with “jungle” behind and between the houses, and children swimming in their front “yards”. The houses were obviously 'run down', though a few of them were beautiful houses owned by people who were obviously people with money. After all, in this part, life is the river and canals, so most people live along the banks.
As we approached the Floating Market itself, the river was packed with tiny boats, like dugouts, with women selling fruit and all sorts of other goods. Our guide bought a bunch of bananas from one woman and we each had one; they were delicious - green skinned but ripe. In England, you wouldn’t look twice at such green skins! Many of the buildings along the canal were open fronted, wooden shops. We were allowed off the boat at a centre for tourists and wandered round the huge shop. At the back of it were several chained up monkeys, and a gentleman who was in our party took a photo with my camera of us with the monkey - sitting on my head!
From the Floating Market, we continued by boat to see the Temple of Dawn, and still further to see the Royal Barges. These were under cover because they were being repaired and repainted ready for the next royal procession. They were rather fine, gold painted boats, that reminded me a little of the Viking boats. We arrived back at the hotel by 12:15 p.m., in time for lunch, after a really enjoyable morning.
Singapore was our next stopping place, and we left Bangkok on September 12th for this destination."
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