Doing A Little Time At Bangkok's Corrections Museum

An hour or two is enough. Let's hope you don't have to spend years at the Corrections museum. Always a guest, never an inmate. It's actually a snazzy place, all brand new and relocated from some old property deep in the city. The museum is now on the property of the Bangkok Corrections Department and is improved for your penal pleasure.

Imposing entrance. Nice touch with the raw concrete look. Entering the Big House.

Great question! No easy answer. Uhm, a lot of cells?

Gruesome history ahead. Specifically, a certain way of execution back in the day.

The modern method of execution, a flag signal to get the machine gun going. The unlucky inmate is strapped to a pole, blindfolded and behind a sheet, never a chance to know the when of being killed.

The end of the museum exhibition has a wall of hope, a little spin on all the good doing time does. ready for the exit.

Luxuriating At The Nai Lert Park Heritage Home

Traditional Thai teak wood houses are usually simple and utilitarian, basic raised residences for a family. Nai Lert, one of Thailand's biggest developers and investors, active around the beginning of the 20th century, took that traditional design and super sized it to his needs and desires.

Humble. Not so much. Grand with a capital G.

Expansive, open air and shaded verandas have seating areas and plenty of options for keeping cool during the tropical days. Teak finishes for miles and miles.

Built in 1915, the house is raised, just like any other home of that period. Just bigger, a lot bigger.

Bringing the indoors out. A big bed and paintings and furniture, all on the porch.

A nod to modernity, the fancy Fiat in the driveway.

Getting Worked Up At The Thai Labor Museum

One of the more curious museums in Bangkok is the Thai Labor Museum. It's off the beaten path, a bit worn around the edges, not really a tourist destination. It's a, ahem, labor of love. And also a good look at the development of labor in Thailand, giving a tiny voice to the underclass, the immigrants, the peeps not normally featured in any sort of museum.

There are a few exhibits of ancient, slave era stuff before the museum segues to the more recent past of Chinese labor. Typical, cramped housing. With opium pipe.

The heyday of manufacturing, brand name textile, clothes work in the 1970's and beyond. Your Fancy Logo Sewn Here.

Labor disaster. A cutaway diorama of a toy factory, part of an exhibit about a large fire at the facility in 1993. The incident is considered the worst industrial fire in history, killing 188 people.

Back to the Chinese, brought in to build railroads. What to do with your precious time off? Head to Thai boxing, of course!

Old propaganda poster, comparing communist and free rice production. Not sure the images depict much difference.

Bag It At The Bangkok Local Market

Bangkok still has plenty of local, outdoor food markets, including the canal shopping, along roads, around stations. Just tables overflowing with yummy stuff. It's also hot and buggy in Bangkok and shoppers are in a rush. Maybe bring out some plastic bags for hygiene and speed?

Veggies, bagged. Looking a little like buying goldfish.

Eggs, your way. Amazing, whole or fully yolk. Grab and scramble.

Fish, infinity pose. Escher would shop here.

Plastic, good for fly protection.

Maybe there are limits to what you want to buy, plastic bag or not. Mystery sauce and not so mysterious silk caterpillar bugs.

Medical History At The Siriraj Bimuksthan Museum

There's a nice, new museum on the campus of Siriraj hospital. The museum displays a variety of medical and hospital historical artifacts and scenes. Find out about drugs, bodies, treatments. Insurance not accepted.

Let's start by opening it all up. An old anatomy model, still needing aid.

Local history, opium history. A recreation of a processing lab and a few fresh poppies, waiting their turn.

Back to anatomy class, skeletons ready to scare the students.

White rat, giving it up for science. Visiting the doctor and getting freaked out by the graphic smallpox display.

The recreation of a traditional pharmacy, complete with extensive local herbal medicines.

Mixing up that medicine, apologies to Bob Dylan. A wet nurse with new baby and tired mom.

Old artificial limb, made from a can, wood and scrap metal. Inventive.