Tuesday, November 26, continued

After making arrangements for our tour we walked towards Chinatown, hopping on a #1 bus part of the way (5 baht). Chinatown was extremely crowded and dirty and probably not the best place to begin our sightseeing. Thailand, in general, is an assault on the senses, and in Chinatown it's intense. All over Bangkok we saw street vendors selling food; in this area they seemed to be on top of one another. It was explained to us that locals rarely cook in their homes as it is cheaper and more convenient to buy food from vendors. Personally, I found the unsanitary conditions questionable and did not eat from any of them. That's not to say the food looked unappetizing; some of it looked downright tasty.

The shops in Chinatown appeared "themed" with one street selling plates and plastic bowls, another street selling primarily shoes.  A policeman saw us looking at a map and told us about a temple he thought we should see and negotiated a price with a tuk-tuk driver before we knew what was happening.  I guess even he was looking for a cut in getting us to go shopping.  As we just wanted to walk around we skipped the ride.

The weather so far was hot, but tolerable.  As the afternoon got warm we stopped into a shop with "Dr. Reflexology" on the door and had our first massage.  It was a 90-minute foot, hand and back massage for 500 baht each.  We were seated in recliners in full view of everyone walking by.  At one point a man seated himself outside the window, facing us, and ate his lunch...right next to Marian's chair.  I suppose we were his lunchtime entertainment.