Day 8 - 1/29/10 - Finally at Peace with Bangkok

This morning I out-smarted the rooster and put tissue paper in my ears (my husband's idea, as he just pointed out) - ha Mr. Rooster, can't get me... but he still did manage to wake me up but it was easier to ignore him and fall back asleep.
We got up around 7 as we had a tour to catch at 9. We signed up for a bike tour through Bangkok with Grasshopper Adventures. It was #1 activity on TripAdvisor, so it must be good right?
We got fitted on our bikes and our tour guide Tammy took all 9 of us to the streets.
I was not really sure how we were going to navigate these crazy streets, but it was amazing. Tammy took us through the big roads, the small ones and the tiniest of them all. We were going along these canals through people's backyards while dodging cars, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, babies, dogs, cats, food stalls vendors, and who knows what else. It was really a great experience. Tammy even took us to a local market where we sampled some cool local foods and great fruit. We end up taking the ferry back over to the other side of the river. We even got bits and pieces of history and cultural references. Oh, did I mention we even saw a dragon? Well actually it was a water monitor, a huge lizard that can be over 9ft long. Our was only about 5 ft long but still very impressive.
We have also met wonderful and interesting people on the tour - a couple from the US living in Manilla working for EU and another family from Whistler who escaped the Olympics and decided to travel Asia for two months instead.
Once we said our good byes we went back to our hotel, took a much needed shower and headed down to a spa for a wonderful 2 hour long Thai massage. It was a very healing and very relaxing experience.
In the evening we took a dinner cruise and finished the day with shopping in the Pad Pong market.
Tomorrow we are flying to Krabi and finally heading to our island destination. Can't wait, but the Internet may be little sketchy there so not sure when will be our next update.
And the title of this post... I actually enjoyed Bangkok... so I am finally at peace with it.