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Mr. Minnegerode had dinner with us at the hotel. Later we went to a Siamese theatre, where the high-pitched, almost chanted dialoague was unintelligible and hence uninteresting to us, but the costumes and music worth the evening. The orchestra sat in a niche to one side of the stage, and consisted of two xyllophone-like instruments, a drum and a pair of cymbals. Both men and women actors wore the curious high, pagoda-like head dresses, gilded, heavy silk costumes [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]] plastered with artificial jewels. The audience was a good as the play, surprisingly juvenile however. There were some adults, but the vast majority were children, and some of them sat on the stage during the performance.

After the theatre we went to How Thin Lau, a Chinese restaurant with a roof garden on the fourth floor, an  danced to quite good jazz music until 12.30. Bill enjoyed dancing with some of the little Siamese and Chinese "hostesses" of the establishment.

June 21 - 

We called at the Legation in the morning, and went with Mr. Chapman to call on Phya Jolamark, the head of the Department of Agriculture. He was a little dubious about finding gibbons in Bangkok, a little disappointed that our time here is so short and he cannot take us to the jungle. He was I think, all prepared to lead our expedition to some grand country, and it is too bad we cannot follow him.

He did take us to some Chinese bird stores, and in one of them we found three gibbons, one of them a baby one. One is gray, one yellow-white, and one black, and we bought them all. When we came back to the hotel, and asked where we could keep them, the hotel manager had no suggestions whatever, so in spite of his pained protests we took them to our room. After lunch I took the baby out of the cage to play with her. She loves to hang around on'es neck, and is really the most appealing little animal I have seen for a long time. When I put her down on the floor or on the bed, she sticks out her tonge, spread her long arms, and runs to me as fast as she can. But when she has to be back in her cage, she cries like a human baby, and I wonder how long our neighbors in the hotel will enjoy her.

Mr. Minnigerode took us for a drive around the city in the afternoon, taking us through the "original city", where are the Royal Palace and the many government buildings, and ending up at the Polo Club, where we met Dr. Jones, a vet, who offered to house our gibbons for us temporarily.
[[underlined]] July 22 - [[/underlined]]

Up at quarter to six, and after a hasty cup of coffee in the room we went downstairs, met Mr. Minnigerode, and went with him for a motor boat ride through the klongs, or canals, of Bangkok. For many years there was no way of getting about the city except by canal, and the whole place is a web of them. We started down the Menam River, and turned off into a canal that took us way out to the outskirts of the city. Here was river life at its most industrious. Shops and houses make a