We're in Bangkok again for 5 days. Although most people can't leave Bangkok fast enough, we kind of like it. It's a crazy place, with so many different kinds of energy it's impossible to keep up. People are everywhere. The streets are full of people, the sidewalks are full of people, the buses are full of people, the markets are full of people. There is almost no escape from people. If I lived here it would drive me insane. We can handle it because we are staying in a fairly expensive 3-star hotel, where it is roomy, clean, and quiet.

Typical street traffic in Bangkok. This isn't particularly busy.

This woman was selling honeycomb with the live bees still in them! I wonder if that is to prove freshness?

We love this clothing shop.

Inside the shop is more silk than I can fathom. Almost all that fabric is high-grade silk.

A market cat.

One of the many bizarre T-shirts we saw in Bangkok. They must take sayings that mean something in Thai and make a direct translation to English.

Speaking of idiom, until the very end of the trip, we had the impression that Thais are very nosy people. They always asked us: "where are you going?" We would tell them and they would often get a confused look on their face. Only on the last day did I read in a travel magazine that it's the same thing as saying "what's going on" or "what's up" in America. We were doing the equivalent of responding to "what's up" by telling the person about your day. The proper response is "I'm going out". Let's Go does not mention this.

This is a shrine for Ganesh, one of the elephant-head gods in Hinduism. I only noticed the "Happy Holidays" sign at the right side of the frame while editing this site, but it is totally appropriate. Thailand is about as religiously tolerant as you can get. According to my friend Gawain, this drove the early Christian missionaries bonkers. The missionaries would present Christianity to the Thais, and the Thais would basically always respond with "that's great, we'll believe that too!"

This was one of the first things we saw in San Francisco. Someone else was actually taking a shot of them and I jumped out of nowhere and snapped this. They wanted to charge me but I was too fast for them.

From the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Our friends Eli and Gabi took us to the aquarium at Monterey. Wow. The only part we really didn't like was the baby seal killing demonstration. Just kidding.

Flying over home, sweet home.