May 4, 2025
CURACAO
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Another fun day with the Miller's exploring Curacao! We started by exploring the bustling port and capital city of Willemstad. This is a Dutch Caribbean Island with a large Dutch community. Known for its old town center with pastel colored colonial architecture. The floating Queen Emma Bridge connects the Punda and Otrobanda neighborhoods. The old Rio Fort has been converted into a shopping center. After walking and exploring most of the morning, we taxied to KOKOMO BEACH to chill for the afternoon. It's a private beach club with a bar and restaurant and a nice calm swimming area and beach.
Wat Bang Kung Temple was a quick stop along the way to the Train Markets . What makes this unique is the Temple is completely enclosed by roots of four giant trees (a banyan, bodhi and others). From the outside, it looks like nature has swallowed the building. Inside the chapel is a golden Buddha image, that locals still visit to pray. It was quite active during our short visit there. The Temple dates back over 250 years and survived the Burmese invasion.
We picked Sunday, hoping for less traffic, to explore two famous Markets. First we traveled about 1.5 hours to the Floating Markets at Damnoen Saduak . We hired a driver with a van for the day, to take the group of us. Below is some of the interesting architecture along the way.
I was looking for a neighborhood to walk around in Bangkok , hoping to escape all the thousands of people and shady sex elements, that were all over the area ( Nana, Sukhumvit ), unfortunately where we booked our hotel, for supposed transit connivence. Shame on me for trusting others recommendations and not doing more research on my own, lesson learned! Thankfully Talad or Talat Noi provided that escape for me, for one night. Sadly we didn't make it there till after sunset, when a lot was closed. But I still enjoyed the quiet and chatting with Sherrie, as we explored the neighborhood's knooks and crannies.