Venice of the East?

We then took a river cruise which was billed as the Venice of the East (pic. 1). Clearly who ever came up with this name has never been to Venice. The highlight was when we threw bread to catfish and watched them eat. Kind of sad that this was one of the things the tour company thought was worthy of inclusion on a tour.

Next up was a wonderful Thai lunch followed by an entertaining dance show (pic. 2).

We were then taken to a rip-off shopping joint where someone followed you through from room to room. Earlier our tour guide had warned us off the street vendors telling us to buy things on the boat cruise which was clearly their stuff and they had also told us not to buy on the street because we would have a better experience at a market later. This was their version of a market, a very over priced controlled rip off handicraft market.

Back at the ship with 15 min. before all-aboard we found a much better shopping market but the ships staff were running through shouting a count down till all aboard and threatening to skip a port if we didn't get on board right now (We have 2 days at sea before Singapore so they looked kind of silly threatening to skip a port 3 days away).

I'll be happy to get to some ports with better air quality. I don't know how the residents of Bangkok put up with the air quality. It must take a terrible toll on their health.