Last Post from Bangkok

Tonight is our last night here in Bangkok.
We seem to be located in the arab quarter ( nothing against them!!!) but there are soooo many - and the women are dressed totally in black from head to foot with only their eyes showing.Some women are more modern and will only have their heads covered and their other clothes will be "normal looking". The men all gather at night and smoke hashis in the bars and it can be quite overwhelming to be the only white woman walking down the street amongst all of them.
We walked into a red light district last night, while looking for food to eat at two oclock in the morning - some stall owners were just starting to set up for their night's work!!
There were lots of western men with Thai women already on their arms. Even though prostitution is officially illegal, it is rife everywhere. There can be rows of ten, twenty women waiting for someone to offer them some money.
Also I saw little children either begging, sleeping and begging or working at two and three in the morning. These kids are from five to eight years old. A little seven or eight year old was selling flowers in the red light district...another five year old was fast asleep with people walking around him...His cup had only a few pennies in it.
It is sad.Very few westerners drop a coin in the beggers cups.
The traffic is madness...We waited over twenty minutes at one intersection today until the taxi driver gave up and tried to turn into another street only to be blocked off by another car. The trip that took us 20 minutes in the morning took almost 1 1/2 at about midday.
The only piece of silence I experienced was a few moments at the reclining buddah and I also had my palm read!
We are all tired and grumpy...time to come home.
See you all soon!!!