Tuesday, November 26

We were up at 7:00 a.m., had breakfast, found an ATM, and walked around the River City Mall. There were about a dozen shops selling ready-made and custom-fitted clothing -- the options were overwhelming. We'd both planned on going through the process of having clothes made, but never got around to it. 

Next to the Sheraton is a pier where we hired a private longtail boat to cruise the canals at a cost of 500 baht ($11.60) for one hour. Due to the heavy rains Thailand had recently experienced, the small canals were off limits, so we went down the main and a secondary canal. We saw many flooded homes. Life can be hard here. Our driver slowed down at the major sites for us to take the obligatory photos. Twice people rode up to us in their boats to sell us souvenirs. We bought something from the second vendor and took a photo of the exchange. Being tired, we forgot all about bargaining (expected in Thailand) and paid 600 for two small elephants; the actual cost should have been about 200 baht. We laughed about our elephants and they are now favored souvenirs from the vacation.