The Jim Thompson House
Well, the last day has come. Tomorrow we head back to the cold north. Truthfully, I am ready to be home. The cold crisp air sounds good to me at this point.
I was back in meetings this morning but this time I sat with someone I knew and things felt much better.
When I returned to our room, Neal was ready to go to the Jim Thompson House and museum. He had looked at the map and said it was easy to get to by the train.
Jim Thompson brought the Thai silk industry to the rest of the world in the 50s and 60s. He built a lovely Thai style home and was extremely successful. In 1969 he disappeared. There have never been any solutions to the mystery. He was visiting friends in Malaysia and just went missing. He did leave a lovely home and a widely recognized Thai silk industry.
So, off we were to our train, up all 84 steps. We got our tickets just like a native and boarded our train. I think we just went a few stops and got off right where the map indicated. We were a little confused at that point. We asked a security guard for help and he pointed us in what we thought was the right direction. Then we started to walk, and walk, and walk. We asked directions a couple more times. We ended up in a not so nice mall just for the air conditioning. We did stop at McDonalds and I had a spinach pie that was kind of good. They were out of orange soda. How can McDonalds be out of orange soda? Don’t they understand that is my vacation drink of choice? We walked and walked some more. We climbed more steps to go over a road and finally saw a sign. Now I need to mention that all the traffic is standing still. Traffic is bad enough but President Obama and Hillary Clinton are in town. God only knows how that affected the traffic.
We finally found it. Oh foolish me, I was expecting air conditioning. No such luck, this is a Thai style house right on the river. Actually it is several houses that have been joined together. It was lovely but I would have put in air conditioning. He had quite a few lovely paintings and they had been moved to a building that might have had air conditioning but we never made it that far. In retrospect this place was really spectacular but my feet hurt and I was cranky. I know, it is hard to imagine me cranky. Heat and hurting feet can push me over the edge.
But then there was the gift shop. It was air conditioned. People won’t spend money if it is hot and the wonderful things in this gift shop were a bit more pricy than other things we have seen in other places. I did get a, to die for, silk scarf and we bought a couple of gifts. Neal tried on a T shirt but they just don’t understand double XL in Thailand.
Then we found out we could get a free ride to the main street and when we got there the train stop was staring us in the face. We just needed to change trains where we got off the other train and we could have come right there. And, glory be, there was an escalator.
We went back to the hotel, ate a quick dinner, and went for one last massage. It was the best one yet.
We were all packed and went to bed early. We had to get up at 4:00 am for the trip home.