05:00 comes way too early, especially after packing until well past midnight. My flight wasn’t until 07:00, but my hosts had arranged a 05:30 taxi for me, somewhat earlier than I had requested.

I got into the hotel, in Chinatown, around 10:00 or so. It’s really nice. It’s called the Shanghai Mansion. Here is the view of our room door:

And the central area.

Our bed is huge, larger than a king size.

And I’ve already had a bath, too!

It was a while before I cared to leave it, but eventually we went to do a little sightseeing. First, a canal ride:

There are monitor lizards in the canals. They’re huge, about 1.5 meters. I saw one crawling up some rocks with a huge fish flopping around in its mouth. These ones were just sunbathing.

I also liked picking up speed on the river.

The boat dropped us off beside Wat Po. Wat Po has a famous massage school and also depictions of Sen lines and acupressure points, sculptures of Ruesri Datton poses, and a huge reclining Buddha.

I love the toes.

We wandered around for a little while after visiting the wat, but then I realized that I was suffering from heat stroke. We headed home, took a nap, then went for streetside dinner in Chinatown.