Samphran Elephant Zoo and Site Seeing in Bangkok

Johnny's land lady Yui and her family treated us to an elaborate brunch at a swanky hotel in downtown Bangkok. The food was delicious! There was an entire room filled with mouthwatering cuisine. It was nice to eat at a proper setting in the air conditioning. Yui's husband, their 3 kids and Grandma were all very welcoming and generous. They own the apartment building that Johnny lives in as well as a chicken farm and coffee plantation. They supply the delicious coffee to the hotel that we eat at. When we came into the banquet room, nice relaxing dinner music was playing.

We loaded our plates with incredible variety. This was the first full blown feast since Texas. We were all pleased with the selections.

As soon as the waitresses saw the "Farongs", they immediately pulled Alex and Johnny up to the stage to sing karaoke. Alex sang Desperado. Next Johnny sang his classic "Noting but a hound dog." It was the funniest thing because everyone was peacefully enjoying their nice meal and here were two Americans singing on stage at 11 in the morning!! Thai's are really serious about karaoke. I took some hilarious videos of them on our camera.



Next we went to the Samphran elephant and crocodile zoo! I was really looking forward to this! First we saw teenage boys wrestling crocodiles. There must not be any laws about child labor. The third boy could not have been a day older than 8 years old. The boys stick their entire head inside the croc's mouth! I had to turn away sometimes as my nerves were getting to me. However, the boys seemed to we extremely comfortable with the ferocious reptiles. After the show, we got to hand feed the crocs raw bat meat. They were very docile until the meat was right above their nose. They opened their jaws wide and snapped them shut before you could blink.

Next, we went to the large stadium for the elephant show. The crew puts on a big production with lights, sounds and smoke! The performers enacted how elephants where used in the past to pull heavy things, help with building houses and also that they were being hunted for tusks, etc. They also reenacted Thailand's independence from Burma with cannon fire, large explosions and sword fighting.

Then the fun began! The elephants were trained to play musical instruments, kick soccer balls into the goal and do hand stands. After the show we purchased bamboo sticks and bananas for 10 Baht. We walked right up and hand feed the majestic creatures. Elephant skin is rough and their hair is very coarse. One of them extended it's trunk and reached out to hold my hand. It felt like he was giving me a hug around my arm. Although they are large, these were very gentle creatures. Asian elephants are actually much smaller than African elephants.

We took a few videos of the performance. We really enjoyed the opportunity of getting so close to the elephants.



Today we went back into downtown Bangkok to see the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho Temple. It was magnificent. It's enormous and takes up an entire building. The temple itself covers 20 acres. The Buddha is 46 meters long and 15 meters tall. He is designed to illustrate the passing of the Buddha into nirvana.

We took the sky train to the Jatujak Market (JJ) which is a wholesale venue. Anything and everything is available there. Street stalls span for miles in every direction. It's easy to get lost in the maze. Luckily they have it divided into sections. There one for clothing, wood carvings, jewelry, antiques, etc. We could have spent days here.

At 6 p.m. we are arrived at a garden party at Johnny's friend's house. Boaz and his wife are both artists. He's a photographer and she's a painter. Their home is smack dab in the middle of downtown Bangkok and is very modern in style. The downstairs is primarily used as a studio and the living quarters are on the second floor. We enjoyed sitting in the terrace drinking Hong Thong whiskey and freshly imported olives from Dubai. Several other photographers arrived so we had plenty of interesting conversation. They were all ex-pats living in Thailand and we enjoyed their company immensely.

In the morning Johnny needs to go to the state department on official business and then we will catch the train to the beach!!

We love you,
Loranda and Alex