Made It To Bangkok Today - Sort Of

My summer biking goal was to make it from Chiang Mai to Bangkok - 745 km or 462 miles.  But we haven't been out of Alaska since early March 2020.  So this was a way to set a target distance and imagine now and then, as I biked along Anchorage bike trails, the rice paddies, the temples, the markets, and the smiles of Thailand.  Here's the post from May describing the trip and the background.

I scrounged through some old boxes of slides.  I didn't want to give you something stereotypically Bangkok and my old slides and pictures are well hidden away in the closets.  But here are two pictures that mean something to me.

My third year in Thailand I lived in Thonburi, right across the river from Bangkok and the royal palace.  To get to and from my room, in a school near the river, I had to take the little ferry that crossed the Chao Phaya.  It cost 50 satang - or half a baht.  In those days the baht was 20 to the dollar if I remember right, so it was about 2.5 cents.  It took about ten minutes to get on board, cross, and get off.  It was like changing from one world into another.  A relaxation chamber as we crossed the water.  The picture is of that ferry from Tha Chang (tha means pier, and chang means elephant, so essentially the elephant pier) on the Bangkok side of the river.  These two pictures are from 1969.  

Below is a very typical Thai scene.  A monk, in the morning, going house to house giving everyone a chance to gain merit by scooping some rice into his bowl as well as other dishes to go with rice.  The monks didn't eat after noon.  I'm pretty sure this was when I was staying at Thai colleague's house right on a small canal.  When I stayed with them, bathing was in the canal.  This was before the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and other pollutants.  

And below is what it really looked like on my ride today as fall begins in Anchorage.  This is out near Campbell Airstrip.  The red leaves of low ground cover.   

I still have time before the snow flies to get some more biking in, but it's nice to make my target.  My knees will be happy when I cut back my biking.  But I'll miss it.