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74

Tuesday Nov. 30  On Rives, BangKok

[[strikethrough]] March 14 [[/strikethrough]]

Up at 6 AM to take boat tour starting at 7 - 

Indescribably picturesque - the canal life. Houses, shacks built on River's edge, women cleaning pots and washing clothes in their doorways & on the steps - half in the water - naked, lovely children everywhere, men & women taking their daily baths,  people living on the river, bathing, drinking the water, spitting in it & working on it. Men mostly wearing loin cloths & turbans, some women in brightly patterned native dress, or black with lantern shaped hats - such as I saw on bus trip from air port & have already described.

Floating market - interesting to see. I wish I could have had a camera to record the faces of the people - the boats piled high with food stuffs, vegetables bamboo shoots, everything imaginable.

Native foliage - beautiful & rich in variety - with native palm trees which I've seen only in Bangkok.

Saw Royal Barges - magnificently designed with ornate mosaic inlay of


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BangKok

Nov. 30
[[strikethrough]] March 15 [[/strikethrough]]

coloured glass, with the King's barge representing The Swan, others with carved figure heads of the symbolic bird figure male body & angry head of bird designed to frighten the enemy. These boats have one porthole at head of boat thru which arrows could be shot. The boats were originally drawn by 70 men.

Finally, we saw 'Wat Arun' 'The Temple of Dawn' a group of Temples all covered to the very peaks of their spires with mosaic and inlays of Chinese plates of all colors & design. [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethrough]] variously shaped. These plates were cut into shapes of flowers in order to be fitted into the stone of the bldgs. [[image]] All this was done within the past 170 years. In fact all the Temples in BangKok are no older. The workmanship is amazing.

Met on the boat, Frances Cossard, the Atkinsons, friends of Louis & Dorothy, & Mr. Matta, a Swiss engineer as well as an American

Transcription Notes:
Image : wheel