Up and Down the River

Hello from Bangkok. I'm staying in a small, low-key neighborhood near the river called Thewet (thanks to J+E for the recommendation). It's a little bit out of the center, but very convenient to the ferry boats on the river. So I've been taking a lot of ferries up and down the river to different sights and neighborhoods.

The ferries are very simple and inexpensive, and there's a series of piers along the river where you can catch them. A number of the piers have little markets you have to walk through to get to the boats. It seems like a clever idea and a win-win situation: the markets get a captive and reliable customer base, and the ferry system gets activity.

Here's a picture from one of these small markets at the entrance to a pier near the Wat Pho:

In concept, it's like the Ferry Building in SF, except instead of Scharffen Berger chocolate, you can get a bucket of eels.