Very poorly! Though it looks like he was up for another try:
Month: September 2013
At the snake farm
Also poorly photographed was our visit to the snake farm. The snake farm is in the middle of Bangkok; it’s run by the Thai Red Cross and named after Queen Saovabha. They breed poisonous snakes so that their venom can be used to create antivenom; if you arrive in the morning, you can see them milking the snakes, but we didn’t get there in time to see that. They do have a wide variety of snakes (both venomous and not) on view, and Harriet was initially pleased to see them all:
After the snake-handling show, which is fairly impressive – they let king cobras wander around – they let the visitors get their pictures taken with a Burmese python. Harriet was initially extremely pleased about this prospect, but then remembered that she hates to be photographed:
After that we went into the museum, where this exhibit explains how to beat snakebite victims with sticks. That did not help him.
The Erawan Museum
Somehow we didn’t get many photos of the Erawan Museum over the weekend despite its being one of the most obviously photographable things we’ve visited yet. It’s in Samut Prakan, the province immediately south of Bangkok; Samut Prakan also contains Ancient Siam, an enormous park containing replicas of the wonders of Thailand for people to wander around; we have not visited this yet. Like the Erawan Museum, Ancient Siam was constructed by Lek Viriyaphant, who seems to have had a lot of money and grand ideas, though this was not explained to my satisfaction at the Erawan Museum, which is an enormous building shaped like the three-headed elephant Erawan, who figures in the Hindu cosmos:
Inside the building is a shrine and filled with religious art, both old and new: the structure is of relatively recent construction, and you can climb all the way up into the elephants. The grounds are beautiful and make for a nice escape from Bangkok. After this we went to the Bang Nam Pheung floating market, a journey partially accomplished on a rickety speed boat, but we didn’t take many pictures of that so you’ll have imagine how idyllic that was.
I need to learn Thai
So that I can figure out exactly what’s going on here:
We passed this duo on the highway…
…on our way to the Erawan Museum. The dog was either wearing a toupee or had an elaborate mohawk dye job. Impressive either way.
Arthur’s progress
Arthur is doing very well living on the balcony:
Water hyacinth
The Chao Phraya is full of water hyacinth, an invasive species originally from South America. It’s a free-floating plant, and you see patches of it floating down the river. The amount of it you see varies from day to day; this morning, you can see a great deal of it from our window:
(In the foreground, you can see the school; to the left, you can see the enormous ferris wheel of Asiatique, which lights up at night. Those boats are hotel boats. The bridge is the Rama III Bridge.)
Here’s what a patch of water hyacinth looks like up close:
