Thailand 2008

These first three photos were taken from a "long-tail" boat - a narrow skiff fitted with an automobile engine that drives a propeller attached to a long shaft. FAST (and noisy!)

Every canal is lined with these makeshift homes. Nobody knows how many people live in Bangkok: we heard an estimate of 15 million, but as in every industrializing country, rural people are migrating to the city too fast to count.

No matter how simple the house, there are two necessities: a TV set and clean clothes. Thai people of every economic level are immaculately dressed - and wonderfully cheerful.

Electric lines have to reach everywhere or how will you turn on your TV?

The big monitor lizard must not make very good eating because we saw several of them along the banks - and Thais make delectable meals out of almost everything.

This was upcountry, some 75 miles from Bangkok. The driver sat on the elephant's head (the animal courteously raised his trunk and lifted him down to take this photo with our camera.) We're smiling for the picture but as we plunged through thickets and waded streams I was certain we'd slide off the narrow seat.

At the "floating market". The last time I was in Thailand the market was in Bangkok; today it's a long bus drive from the city.

Food - here plantains - is cooked right on the boat.

Traffic jam at the market. Food is passed over the intervening boats to customers on the banks in straw baskets on long bamboo poles, money passed back the same way.

A teak carver at work. Thai craftsmen are famous for this deep undercutting.

Women too are master carvers. Children (and of course dogs) are everywhere in the workshops.

In the ever-hot and humid weather, this carver has set up his fan.

Next-best to a fan, coconut milk is a welcome cooler!

TO COME NEXT: NORTHERN THAILAND