Monday in Bangkok, continued.

After our trip to Wat Pho we hopped onto a tuk tuk to get to the other side of the city. The tuk tuks here look like they're built onto little tiny three-wheeled truck beds. The tuk tuks in Siem Reap, which we never drove in, are more like carts hooked onto the back of motorcycles. I guess that makes the ones here a bit safer but it was still terrifying driving through the Bangkok traffic. At least you can't get up much speed as you swerve in between all the other crazy drivers.

Our driver took us to the Jim Thompson House. Jim Thompson was an American who was stationed in Thailand at the end of WWII and decided to stay after the war ended. He is credited with reviving the Thai silk industry in the 1950's, in part by supplying all the silk fabric used in the movie "The King and I." He went to Malaysia for vacation when he was 61 years, went for a walk, and was never heard from again.

He left behind a beautiful teak house in Bangkok that is now a museum, restaurant and gift shop.

You could try your hand at spinning the silk, as this man did.

Even the hook on the back of the bathroom door was beautiful.

Over the canal there's a small neighborhood that was once home to a thriving weaving community. It now has just two small studios but we managed to find one of them by wandering around in the little warren of alleyways. The proprietor was very happy to show us around, including where one lone loom was being used by a weaver who graciously let me take a video of her.

The owner of the studio had a picture of himself as a young man with Jim Thompson. He was happy to pose for a picture for me.

I couldn't buy any silk thread but we did buy a beautiful piece of fabric to remind us of a pretty special experience.

From there we decided to walk back to our hotel. In retrospect we may have done better finding a taxi or tuk tuk. We didn't have a great map and took a few wrong turns before we made it back to the hotel two hours later. That kind of walking wouldn't have been so draining if it hadn't been in the high 90's. Fortunately we had the pool and fruit smoothies to help us cool off.