Day-10: Bangkok & On To Cambodia

Day-10: Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Beginning Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Final Location: Bay of Thailand, En-Route to Sihanoukville, Cambodia

We would take a short tour today as the ship was scheduled to sail at 1500. Following breakfast we headed ashore to meet with our guide and tour bus around 1100.

Today's trip would take us through the streets of Bangkok passing the various "villages", through Chinatown and by many of the temples and palaces we visited yesterday. Our first stop was at a street market, an area specializing in the wholesale & retail marketing of flowers.

Yes, that's a bucket of eels.

As a part of the tour experience we boarded a Tuk Tuk, a motorized 3-wheel vehicle to traverse the local streets.

For our Tuk Tuk ride we even had a police escort.




One more stop for a few more Buddhas closed out the tour, as we stopped at the Wat Po or Temple of the Reclining Buddha. The reclining gold-plated Buddha is 105 feet in length and 49 feet high.

If you hang around long enough you might just become part of the scenery. It wasn't easy getting the pointy head selfie.

Other residents of the temples.

We were back on board the ship around 1400 and so began "laundry day" on board the Nautica. Seems that a fair number of travelers had the same idea so with four washers, four driers and two irons and boards it quickly became "competitive laundry", no one was willing to leave their place in the laundry queue and soon the line was backed up to the door. Nevertheless, as with any Laundromat it became a social gathering and in about 2 hours we were done with laundry and moved on to the business of returning to sea.

The ship departed Bangkok at 1500 reversing the 2-hour sea detail of yesterday, this time heading down river.

Royal Thai Naval Academy

We had dinner at one of the ship's specialty restaurants, Toscana. The restaurant specializes in Italian cuisine. We both had veal dishes, Sheila a marsala and for me osso buco, both excellent.

With our passing of the Bangkok Bar Pilot Station Lighthouse we're on our way to Cambodia with a southerly heading that will shift to southeast after passing the point at Sattahip.

Bangkok Bar Pilot Station Lighthou

QUIZ: The Royal Thai Naval Station at Sattahip was the home port of HTMS Phutthaloetla Naphalai FFG-462. What was the former name of FFG-462?