Aunt Denise

Hi Denise, you have been asking a few questions in the comments, and there is no good way for me to respond, so I'll do it this way (since I am in charge here...)

You most recently asked: Is this a buddist holy day [Loy Krathong]? Do the Thai wear colorful garments, ordinary blue jeans or what?

I don't actually know what Loy Krathong is for - I assume it is Buddhist since they're all buddhists here, but I'm not sure. Wikipedia won't work from this computer and I'm not sure why not. I have not specifically heard the people talk about Buddhism when describing the holiday, so perhaps it predates the religion? Maybe someone can comment about it.

As for the clothes here, they are pretty standard. I don't think they really dress like Americans, but similar. Not everyone is in blue jeans like in the US, but some are. Most seem to either be in what I would call business dress or casual dress. Business dress would be slacks and a polo for men and a skirt and blouse for women. Many people wear this. Casual dress would be like linen loose shirt or a t-shirt and loose linen-type pants or capri pants (or jeans). Younger people often dress more casually. Probably 99% of people wear flip-flops or sandals. The monks all wear orange, yellow or brown robes just like you've seen on TV - very cool. There are lots of monks.

I think someone asked about food a while ago. Thai food here is similar to Thai food in America. Noodles, rice, veggies - but a bigger focus on meat at most places. We are a bit limited in our eating because we have to stick to places that have English on the menu. Probably about half of the places do, maybe more in the center of the city where we are - lots of tourists here. We have tried Thai food, there is a great Japanese place adjacent to our hotel, and last night we tried pizza and Kane tried a burrito at a place downtown that boasts Thai, American, Italian, and Mexican food (yikes). Burritos were a mistake, pizza was surprisingly good. Generally, you can find whatever food you want here, but not always as good as in CA (i.e. they don't have Mexican people, so you know the food can't be as good). They are keen on putting meat in everything (thai dishes). Especially pork, they love pork. They take perfectly good dishes and just throw some unnecessary pork in it - pisses me off. But there are plenty of veggie places too, so that is nice for us.

Anyway, happy to answer questions about culture and lifestyle the best I can. Let me know if you have any more questions Denise, or anyone!

Relaxing

Well, it's Monday night in Chiang Mai, and here is the weekend report. This weekend was Loy Krathong, and we got to experience the rest of the weekend without incident while having a lot of fun. As per the previous post, we witnessed the celebration by the river on Friday night and experienced the madness. On Saturday, we decided that we'd had quite enough of that and simply took part in the festivities at our hotel. We love our hotel, the lobby is so cute and nice, and all their events are very cute. Each night they have some sort of live music - the guy with the acoustic guitar doing American classics is my favorite - "rastin aray ageen in malgalitavirre"...if you follow.

On Saturday night we got tickets to the Loy Krathong party at our hotel. At about 5pm we went down to the lobby and were taught how to make "krathongs". The base of a krathong is made from a disk of the trunk of a banana leaf tree. You then proceed to decorate this disk with banana leaves that are folded in all sorts of neat ways. Then you add flowers to make it pretty. Then you put a little piece of foam in the center of the disk and stab some incense sticks, a candle, and more flowers into the foam to make the top pretty. People who wanted to made their own krathongs, and the hotel had a zillion others premade for everyone else. There was a band of children playing traditional Thai music on strange instruments, and there was food and traditional drinks - which were kind of gross. At about 7pm they moved everyone to the pool to set off paper lanterns into the sky (as described in an earlier post). They had a lot of them so that all the guests could light one.

After the lanterns, we all got our krathongs and took a walk down to the canal - there were probably 30 or more people with us! We all filed to the nearby canal and lit up the candles and incense on our krathongs and set them in the canal to float away with all of our "bad luck". Traditionally you put your krathong in the river, but the canal is closer so I assume they figured it would be easier to tote 30+ tourists 2 blocks instead of 10. It was very fun anyway.

And the next day, they even gave me pictures of Kane and I that they had taken while we made the krathongs and as we released our lantern - like I said, I love this hotel.

We didn't go out after that, and instead called it an early night and read for the remainder of the evening. Sunday had an uneventful morning (sending out pictures takes forever). Sunday evening, however, is the weekly market in Chiang Mai. It's huge and awesome. There is food and about 6 city blocks-worth of streets are closed off and completely lined with vendors selling all sorts of fun goods. There was also a parade that night for Loy Krathong, which we watched part of (neither of us are terribly interested in parades). By the way, I think "parade" is the most difficult word to discern from a native Thai saying it in English. They say "palade" and put accent on the first syllable instead of the second. Took me a few tries the first time someone said it to us.

So, we walked the market, bought a couple things, found the cake stand - yum!, and then came home nice and tired. That market is awesome, we're definitely going next Sunday too.

Loy Krathong

With the "th" pronounced as a "t", Loy Krathong is a once yearly Thai celebration, held on the full moon in November. This year, that is tonight but the celebration extends this whole weekend with parades tonight and tomorrow (Sunday) and general madness all 3 days. Loy means "float" and Krathong means "banana leaf", which describes the customary event of floating a frisbee-sized banana leaf boat down the river with prayers for forgiveness and a clean start. I don't think this is their new year, but the sentiment is the same.

The other traditional thing to do is to set of an "air balloon" into the sky, which looks like an oversized paper lantern. The sky is filled with them, tiny specs of orange light glowing near and far as they float along until their flame is extinguished, they meet a barrier such as a tree, or they catch themselves on fire. These lanterns are very thin paper cylinders that vary in size but are typically about the size of an oil drum. They are all enclosed except for the bottom which is open and has wire holding a candle in the center of the lantern. When you light the candle, hot air fills the paper and makes the whole thing float like a balloon. They are actually very beautiful.

Now, the other thing about this festival, which I found to me a bit more...noticeable...is the abundance of beer and fireworks. Honestly, it's like a war zone. No photos, video, or words can capture the madness. We walked the main drag last night with Kane's friend and his girlfriend; it was nice to have guides because I don't think we could have handled it alone. Hordes of people line the river and the adjacent streets are packed with cars and people. There are hundreds of stalls selling food, sweets, drinks, firecrackers, and krathongs (the little boats) by candlelight. The noise is deafening. Hardly a second goes by without a pop or a bang of a firecracker, many of which I understand are homemade. Some of them are way too close and I am constantly flinching. I watched one boy throw a firecracker at a group of people with a grin on his face. Glad I'm wearing shoes.

The river appears to be the main target of the fireworks, most people light their bottle rockets or sparklers and let them fly into the river; but some folks appear more interested in the noise alone. Some of the explosives must be just that - actual TNT - because some are so loud that it is truly scary. I tried to take pictures, but I'm not sure how well they turned out because it's really hard to record landscapes like that at night. Plus it's hard to hold the camera still when I'm constantly flinching. I didn't see anyone get hurt, and we ourselves came out unscathed, but I'm sure the police and hospitals have a busy weekend. Just like 4th of July I suppose. Apparently you can't suppress stupid people with fireworks anywhere in the world. Boys...

So, we walked the strip (plugging my ears for much of it), bought and lit a lantern thing, and bought some strange gooey dessert item. Definitely an experience. Today, our hotel has a little party that where they will teach us how to make a krathong. Then we will all walk down to the river together and float our krathongs. We probably will not stay out quite as late tonight, just to avoid some of the madness - supposedly tonight is supposed to be even crazier.

Happy Loy Krathong!

Thai Massage

We're waiting for Kane's friend to let us know what we're doing tonight (he has a friend from high school who lives in town), so I'll write about the massages we got last night. We got Thai massages last night. They were nice, Kane liked it more than I did. My tour book describes Thai massage as "passive yoga", which apparently means that they stretch your limbs all about and push on you with their arms, elbows, hands and feet. It was interesting. Not the Swedish massage that I was looking for, but a good experience. Kane thought it was nice, as he does not like the "sissy" massages that I do.

So that's it, we tried it. Next time I'm getting a foot massage. It was $9 US for an hour. Expensive for here, but we didn't care. It was at the nice place in our hotel, so we paid for nice atmosphere. They give you ginger tea, soak your feet, wash your feet, then take you to a room to change. Then you lay on a bed-type thing, Kane and I were right next to each other the whole time. The two ladies massaging us kept talking to each other throughout the massage, sometimes giggling. I couldn't help but think they were making fun of the ogre Americans in front of them. Kane's lady chuckled when she arrived, which I attributed to either his huge feet or the fact that they were hanging off the bed because he's so tall. This country is not meant for people over about 6' tall. Oh well, poor Kane. Watch your head.

We paid for 7 more nights at this hotel today. We're going to do some tours next week: a temple nearby, the Golden Triangle, the Longneck people, and a cooking class. Thailand is awesome.

Chiang Mai Rocks

All right, I have mixed feelings about travel advice, mostly because it's not easy to predict what someone else will find enjoyable or not about a given place, but I would like to recommend Chiang Mai as the premier destination of this country - from what I have seen so far. Bangkok was awful: crowded, unfriendly, smelly, dirty, and people constantly trying to sell you stuff. At least the part we were in. Ayuttaya was better, much nicer - perhaps anywhere outside of Bangkok will be relieved of at least some of those symptoms. The south is beach land (we have not been and are not going to go), nice if you like beaches (we don't really).

Chiang Mai is what I was looking for from this country; this is why I came. It still has all the quirkiness of Thailand, the things that make it so different than the US (it's third worldesqueness), but in a way that's not so accosting. Though still a crowded, busy city, you can breathe here. Not to say the air is clean (I have no idea if it is), but you can move, you can walk around, there are things to do and you can actually find them and do them.

We found a used book store/book exchange yesterday and exchanged the books that we had brought and finished. Kane is continuing with Terry Pratchett and I have moved from "The Beach" (sorry Henry, traded it in) to some Asimov. The book store was excellent, had many good choices.

There is a huge festival this weekend called Loy Krathong. It appears to be a mixture of Christmas and 4th of July in style, with a parade, constant songs playing in the streets and at the hotel, and a general huge celebration. It's mainly tomorrow, but extends all weekend. Looking forward to it, I think it's a big deal (I'm kind of a big deal...). Happy Thanksgiving again everyone!

Follow up to "Commenting"

My dad left a lengthy comment describing how to create an account so that you can leave comments, for those who are confused about the site. See the comments below the "Friends and Family" entry about 3 entries down.

Thanks dad!

Trains, Planes and Tuk-tuks

Wednesday we had plane tickets to Chiang Mai from Bangkok's old airport (not the one we originally flew into, which was very new and much nicer). Before describing this journey, I should answer a few questions. Monique: the weather here is hot and humid, much like Hawaii. In Bangkok, it's probably 80-90 degrees with some ridiculous amount of humidity, though I've felt worse (probably in Hawaii). I have actually been fine in pants and a t-shirt, but Kane is usually hot. It's been kind of overcast, with rain on one day in Bangkok. Were there other questions? Repeat, if so.

Ok. We are in Ayuttaya and our flight is at 2:40 from an airport about 40 minutes away by train. We realize the train schedule that the guy at the TAT (Tourist Authority of Thailand) office had given us was outdated. We check the train station's website for train times. No trains between 7am and noon. We wanted to leave earlier than noon, but oh well. The train is 30 cents each. It arrives 20 minutes late. It's ok, plenty of time. This time, we see that there are signs at each train stop and are able to discern our train stop on our own - thank goodness.

We get off the train at about 1:30, the airport just across the street. We're supposed to check in at 1:40 - we'll probably be a little late. We climb the ramp that goes to a walking bridge over the freeway and into the airport. Once we get to the other side, the rest of the passageway into the terminal is blocked by locked doors. There are stairs that lead down to the street (freeway, really), but there are fences between the freeway and the airport. We have no choice, we walk down to the freeway. We see up ahead a few hundred feet that the road splits and you can get into the airport terminal. We walk and see a bus that takes you to the terminal, which is still about a mile ahead. Free shuttle - we get on and wait. It's 1:50. The shuttle leaves at 2:00. We're squirming in our seats. We make it to the departures area with help from a security guard. They are boarding right now. We bag up our backpacks, give them to the baggage check and rush to our terminal. Another shuttle awaits at the terminal, we get on. Standing room only. It's 2:15 - whew!

We shuttle to the tarmac to meet our plane. We've flown this type of plane before to Seattle; 3 seats on one side, 2 on the other. Kane can barely fit. Even my knees hit the chair in front of me. It's only a 50 minute flight, however, so it's over before we know it. Oh yeah, dad, this country is actually pretty big. Rather, it spans a lot of miles - the southern area is very long and narrow. It's probably a 3 hour flight from top to bottom of the country, just a guess. Check out google maps; it's a neat shaped country. Anyway, we arrive at the very northern part: Chiang Mai.

Supposedly it's "cold" here but I think they have cold confused with normal. It's sill humid, but it's about 75 degrees with a slight breeze. It rained just after we arrived, but we didn't care. Our hotel sent a truck to pick us up, and we rode here with 2 guys, 1 from Canada, the other a doctor from Arizona who does lectures around Thailand and Myanmar. We arrive at our hotel and the hotel people let us know all the tours and treks they sell here, something which Kane and I were originally opposed to, but are now looking forward to. It would be so much easier to have someone show us around. I'd gladly pay them $15 to make my day go smoothly and show me some neat stuff. We'll probably do some of those trips at some point.

Anyway, our hotel is beautiful, $42 US a night. We did the buffet breakfast (included and delicious), and will do massages later today, hopefully. Forget traveling, let's vacation. We have this hotel booked until Monday, we'll see if we stay longer. There is a large festival this weekend here, should be fun. We can either hang with Kane's friend or do this thing with our hotel where they have food, drinks, and show you how to make these little paper boats that they float down the river for the celebration. Either would be fun, we'll see. Ok, onto start my day.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, enjoy your friends and family. =)

Wats and River Fish

Ok, I need to backtrack a little, since I haven't been able to spend much time at a computer for a couple days. Right now, it's Thursday morning. Yesterday we flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, and Tuesday was our 2nd and last full day in Ayuttaya (about an hour north of Bangkok). I'm going back to Tuesday to talk about that full day in Ayuttaya.

We had spent the first Ayuttaya day touring some ruins, etc., and noticing that Ayuttaya was noticeably less awful than Bangkok, as discussed in a previous entry. The second day, we left the hotel feeling refreshed - I had a real sense of accomplishment from actually getting to do something the day before - actually seeing something that we came to see. Up until then, we had been kind of fumbling around trying to get our bearings and figure this place out. Now, we had the tuk-tuks down, we had decided which sites we wanted see, and we were going to go and actually do a full day of sightseeing.

We had chosen two wats to see that day (wat is the word for a Thai temple), and we were tuk-tuking to the first. This temple was one that is still in use, not just ruins like the ones the day before. Two huge buddas, pointy roofs, gold plated goodness. Not super impressive, but nice to finally see one. The second place was the last of the major ruins that we had seen the day before. Not much different that the others; we took more pictures.

Then we decided to walk the town, and meander toward the "backpacker" area of town, maybe meet some people. Anywhere you walk, that we have seen so far, is like total run-down poverty. There are neighborhoods like these in the US, but we've hardly seen them because if we actually went it, we probably wouldn't come out. So, it looks awful, but since it's just the norm, it's not super dangerous like the States. So, we trek through the typical overgrown landscaping, cracked sidewalks (if any), litter everywhere, collapsed fences, power lines, dogs sleeping, hovels left and right, and dirty food stalls lining the streets. That's the scene. It's ok, but not my favorite to take a stroll in. Kane likes it more than I do, I think because walking around is the only way to really see all this stuff - which I can appreciate to be something to experience, but it just does not behoove me to do it continuously.

Anyway, we walk about half a mile and a guy asks us where we're going and if we need a guesthouse to stay in. He's no con artist. We tell him the street we're looking for and he points us west. We walk west, but it turns out to be the wrong way. We turn around and walk north some more, but I'm getting tired and hungry, and therefore cranky.

We had a place in mind to eat from our tour book that was near the ruins, so we turn back and start trying to find it. The ruins are lit up at night, so we wanted to have dinner then stroll past the ruins again to see them all lit up.

Our dinner place is cute - as good as we could ask for. It's a raised bungalow that's made of all wood with a tile roof. It's all open air without windows or doors and each table has an oscillating fan. It's adorable. And they even have a cute tabby who begs for food, how could it be better? I order the river fish with veggies and Kane tries Padthai to see how they actually make it in Thailand. Turns out he padthai is very similar to the stuff we have in the US, but my fish is a whole fish. Yep, head, tail, eyeballs and all. I felt silly being grossed out; it's not like I don't know this is where my fish fillets come from. I ate it and it wasn't bad. Not as tasty as salmon, but it was just a nice, light, white fish.

We sit around at the restaurant, partially because it was nice, but partially because we haven't figured out how to get the bill here yet. They don't seem to just bring it to you like at Applebees, you seem to have to ask, which I hate doing. We get the mango and sticky rice for dessert (at your suggestion Diane V.), and it was good. Then my stomach started to tell me something.

(warning: mildly graphic description of my body not liking the river fish to follow)

It told me it wasn't happy with something. Rumble rumble. Oh crap, this is not good. I've had this happen before from eating something. I know the process: stomach pains, maybe throw up, more stomach pains, cold sweat, weakness, really bad stomach pains, desperate and immediate need of a toilet. Basically, I knew the story, but not the timeline. The restaurant has a decent bathroom, thank god, that I immediately utilized for throwing up. Perhaps the river fish wasn't a great idea. Stomach hurting, we sat for a bit longer, then I decided we needed to make a run for it. The plan: walk down the street 2 blocks to a tuk-tuk and get to the hotel asap. I had to sit down twice. The 2nd time I just laid on the sidewalk. Yeah, laid on a sidewalk in Thailand at night. Stomach not happy, sweating, very weak.

Kane flags down a tuk-tuk. We're in front of the lit up ruins at this point. Thankfully, they weren't that cool lit up, and you can't even go inside at night, so we weren't missing much. I want to hug the tuk-tuk driver, but instead I lay down in the back. Five minutes later we're at the hotel, up the elevator, and to the precious bathroom just in time. Half an hour and a shower later, I felt much better.

Now, I don't want to blame the fish or the restaurant at all. And all in all, it went as well as it probably could have. I think that foreign fish was just too much for my body to handle right then, being so new here and all. It actually didn't even ruin the day or anything either. Just made for an abrupt ending. We read a bit and go to sleep. Good day, bad fish.

Friends and Family

Hello all! I wanted to take a moment to address yous guys - yes you people who actually read this. Firstly (yes Thom, firstLY), I don't even know who is reading this unless you leave a comment. Not that I really need to know, but it really makes my day to read your guys' responses, questions, etc. So, thanks for that, those of you who comment.

And dad, thanks to you the most, you comment the most and you are so cute about it. I miss you. Thanks for showing Annie Jane how to navigate the blog and retrieving her a nice chair, she really needed it. And welcome Annie, glad you're here now. Monique, Denise, Dave, Jon, etc., thanks for posting, you guys are funny and cute too.

It's fun here, and interesting, and Kane is the best travel companion I could possibly ask for, but I honestly look forward to finding a computer each day to update you all and to read any comments or emails you have sent. Thanks. Like I said, it's fun to be away, but it's also difficult for many reasons and I thank you all for coming along with me to support me, as usual.

And for anyone who doesn't know what I mean about commenting on my blog entries, I will try to explain. Below each entry (entry meaning a title and the paragraph(s) that I have written) it says in small letters "comments". This word is a link, and if you click it, you are taken to a page where there are two areas. To the left are comments that other people have already posted for that entry. On the right, there is a blank text box where you can type. I'm not sure if you have to register or anything, but you should be able to just type in the box to the right and then press the "post comment" button. Your comment should be added to the posted comments on the left. If this is wrong, post a comment to help me out (dad). Email me if have questions (Rhonda).

So, in summary, write me a comment, thanks for reading my blog, miss you guys, and I love my dad. =)

Ayuttaya to Chiang Mai

We're off to the train station, so no time to discuss yesterday, but I will later. Interesting day. Anyway, we now face the challenge of trying to discern our stop on the train. No signs, no speaker announcements, no one speaks english. Go us! Wish us luck, our flight is in 3 hours...

Ruins and Dogs

Those are the cool things to see here. There are some neat brick ruins in Ayuttaya, pretty expansive and pretty cool. Not many people walking around them, so we got lots of pictures. I am hoping that when we meet up with Kane's friend in Chiang Mai later this week that we can upload some of the pics that we took. You can't access the USB or anything at these internet places.

There are dogs everywhere. I guess it means the people aren't going hungry though, right? Always good to look on the bright side. Still breaks my heart to see them just wandering around, some in pretty bad health. I keep taking pictures of them. The cats too, but there are more dogs than cats. Anyway, I think of them often and wish them the best possible.

So, yesterday we did the ruins, today I think we are going to go see the "tourist" area. It better not be like Bangkok or we're tuk-tuking right out of there. This is a small town encompassed by a river. Our hotel is right on the river, though the picture on the brochure shows the river as deceivingly clean looking. Still cool, took many pictures from our 5th story room. We're hoping to *gasp* speak to some other travelers today and maybe get the scoop on some cool stuff. We'll see how that goes, I'm not even good at talking to people in my own country. Plus, we have not been greeted with quite the friendly attitude that I had been expecting here.

I smile at everyone we pass, and some smile back, some don't. Not one pair or group of other travelers has stopped to converse with us. Maybe it's because Kane stands behind me and scowls, I don't know. We're going to keep trying.

We have about a billion questions about this country that we can't get answered because we simply don't speak or read the language. I am really hoping to learn more once we catch up with Kane's friend in Chiang Mai, since he speaks the language and has been here a while. We need a translator to ease us in; we're not good at it by ourselves. But we have the time and we have the desire, so we will get better!

Ok, this internet place is "expensive" ($4/hour), so I'm outta here. Hope all is well in the US of freakin A, I'll try to send pics later this week.

Ayuttaya

Yesterday, we boarded a train to Ayuttaya, to explore whatever awaits us. My tourist book told me there were ruins, so ruins we came to see. After we paid sixty cents for a train ticket, we boarded the train. It was nastier than the BART train, but still ok. And we had A/C, wee! We see the ticket collector guy coming down the aisle (cue Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade - "tickets please") and seemingly randomly booting people to other cars. Crap, we don't know the difference between cars. Are some better than others? Which one did we get on? Is there a bathroom? No idea. The ticket guy skipped us the first time through, I can only assume this was because we appeared to belong in the group of other white (though non-American, I think) travelers that we strategically sat with. He did, however, come back about a half hour later after people had moved to our car and had standing room only. He checks our tickets and tells us that we belong in the 3rd class in the back. We were currently in 2nd class, with A/C, which costs 225 B ($6, rather than sixty cents). So we move to the cattle car. No A/C, windows all open, no room to store our backpacks. At least we got to spend 40 minutes of the ride as stow aways in the good train car. We smoosh into seats facing two Japanese girls, clutching our huge backpacks. I ask a Thai girl opposite me if she is going to Ayuttaya because thus far we have not been able to discern any of the stops. She is going to Ayuttaya, though she speaks no English. Thank god anyway, we'll get off when she does.

We get to a stop around the time that we are supposed to arrive to Ayuttaya, and the girl taps me on the shoulder to tell me this is the stop. Bless her heart, I could have kissed her feet. We would have stayed on that train all day. Next challenge: cross the river. The guy who booked our hotel (at the Tourist Authority of Thailand office or TAT) told us to cross the river and get a taxi to our hotel. Where the hell is the river?

We walk down the road that faces us. Nobody accosts us like in Bangkok. Still dirty, still street vendors, still tons of dogs running around, but nobody yelling at us to buy their shit and no foul stench. We like this place better already. And low and behold, the river is at the end of this street. Three Baht to cross on a ferry - about nine cents. The ferry is some real third world goodness, but we didn't sink so I have nothing to complain about.

It's slummy here, like everywhere, but nice. The buildings are all interesting - ranging from corrugated steel shantis to fancy Thai architecture - and at the very least, it looks nothing like America. That's why we came, right? We take a tuk-tuk to our hotel for $1. Tuk-tuks are these little three wheeled motorized carts with benches in the back for tourists to sit on. They are cheap and scary, but I think that's the theme for the whole country. Should be their anthem.

Our hotel is plush. We had intended to do this journey staying at the cheapest hostels, but because we fear arriving at places with nothing booked, we keep booking these sweet hotels. Not plush like a US hotel, but has a nice lobby, large rooms, restaurant, pool, and American style toilet and shower. They don't seem to have the decorating prowess that Motel 6 has (I'm not kidding), but definitely nice. And about $60 a night. So, that's how we've been rolling so far.

Our day in Ayuttaya discussed in next post.

Internet

Quickly, 2 minutes left! In Bangkok there are a million internet cafes. You pay with a meter into a box next to the computer. There are also computers for "rent" in your hotel. That's where we get on the internet. Does that answer your questions?

Con Artists

So, apparently they're everywhere, just waiting to come talk to any white people strolling around. We were confronted by a guy yesterday who was really keen on telling us about all the local sights to see and when everything is open and closed, etc. In my tour book, it talks about the things that are typical for con artists to say to tourists, all of which culminate in them trying to get you to buy something for "cheap" that is worth "way more" normally (typically gems - who would buy gems? We know you wouldn't fall for this Theresa...). Of course, Kane and I would never do that crap anyway, even if it were true - we're not idiots.

But it was funny to see how close this guy was to what the book described - he began with casual conversation, asked where we were from and then said he had a relative there (SF), told us about a holiday that didn't appear to be happening, and carried a cell phone (not the norm). Nothing threatening at all about him, and he eventually said good day and went on his way - possibly because Kane was shifting his weight and looking around continuously and we were giving very vague answers to his questions. I was just polite and Kane was disinterested. We had nothing valuable on us and this guy was smaller than both of us and nicely dressed, so we weren't worried about anything physical happening. Funny though, how they do that. I guess it's very common. People are always looking for a good deal and waiting for some guy to come give it to them, then they just get ripped off.

No thanks, man, just seems weird to me. Can't get something for nothing, and I don't even want to try.

Time Difference

The internet can tell you, but we are 15 hours ahead of California time. I have no idea what that means for Germany, Jon, you figure it out.

Banglamphu, Bangkok

It smells funny here. We're in this district that is noted for being popular among backpackers and other travellers. It is loud, crowded, and has a billion street vendors fighting for you attention and money. Not exactly our scene, but at least there is food, other travellers, and a bed to sleep in.

Our hotel is "mid-range" and we booked it in advance so we'd have a few days to relax when we first got here. It cost $70 american a night, and it's crappier than a Motel 6. I don't know why, but I was surprised. Fortunately, I have seen no bugs and no overt filth, so that's good. The beds (yes, we each have a twin bed) are hard as a rock (mom, you'd love it), as are the pillows. We did, however, get a good night's sleep of 10 hours last night, followed by 3 hours of nap after breakfast. We had to catch up - we were awake for 24 hours!

We've walked the strip today: Khao San Road (famous road) and snapped a couple pics. There are fun nick-nacks to buy here, but we have no room in our packs (plus we probably don't need any crap anyway), so oh well.

We have this hotel tonight (Saturday night) and Sunday night, and will go elsewhere (to be determined) on Monday. Thank god this keyboard has the roman alphabet. Yeay for travel!

Taxi

So we get a taxi from the airport. You tell the guy running the thing where you are going, he gives you a price, and you get in the next taxi in line - pretty typical. We paid 450 Baht (about $15), which was expensive from what I heard, but we pretty much didn't care at that point.

Thailand has roads and lanes and traffic laws and signs just like the US, but no one really seems to notice, care, or abide them. There are 3 lanes on the street, but for some reason we are travelling in a 4th lane on the shoulder. We pass within inches of cars around us and squeeze into spots that you didn't think a car could fit. We are driving on the left side of the road, the driver sits on the right side of the car.

I don't know if it's because I was so tired, or because I figured the driver was a "professional", but I didn't really care about the driving. Seinfeld does a routine about taxi drivers, talking about how they drive like lunatics but we all just sit in the back thinking they know what they're doing. That's pretty much how I felt. Anyway, we made it. Traffic, as warned, is ridiculous. Kane said one red light lasted about 10 minutes. And others would cycle green to red repeatedly and we would go nowhere. Like LA, I guess. But with no laws. Don't drive here is the lesson.

Our ride took us 1.5 hours to get to our seedy hotel in Banglamphu - a travellers district of Bangkok. It's nasty here, I don't know why I thought we would like it. We'll move on soon.

Airplane

Ok, we're in Thailand now, but I'm going to start by briefly describing our travels. We left Honolulu airport at 7:15 am on Thursday morning. That means we got to the airport at 5am (courtesy of Diane Varley, who is awesome), having woken up at 4am. A ten hour flight on China Airlines landed us (literall) in Taipai Taiwan, where we had a 2 hour layover and didn't do much. I did, however, feel the need to take a picture of the "smoking rooms" in the Taipai airport, rooms which they also have at the Bangkok airport. I called them cancer rooms and proceeded to photograph them in appropriate mockery. Gross.

We got two meals on the 10 hour flight - and apparently requesting "vegetarian" meals means Indian food. It was ok, but when you start to feel kind of queasy from turbulance, Indian food is not exactly your first choice. Oh well. You get your own personal TV screen and remote, Kane and I watched I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry, Knocked Up, and Ocean's 13. They were all very mediocre but we were happy to have something to pass the time.

Kane does not fit into the seats, but he was not ridiculously uncomfortable. His knees hit the seat in front of us, and he's pretty good at dealing with that.

Next flight was 4 hours from Taipai to Bangkok. One meal and I slept most of the way. We were in the front seats, so Kane actually got an appropriate amount of leg room - yeay! Once we landed in Bangkok, we did the immigration thing (they completely don't look at the form you fill out, by the way), grabbed our luggage, and proceeded to be accosted by a barrage of people with taxis for hire. My book told me to seek out the "metered taxi" desk, and so we did.

Go to next post for Taxi info.

Hawaii, but more conscious

Ok, now it's Wednesday and we've had a good night's sleep. Muuuch better. We got our hotel reservations in Bangkok, we ran errands, we are good to go. Now we just need to work on going to sleep at 8pm and getting to the airport at 5am. Next entry will be from the other side of the world. Post comments if you have questions, or just email me. That is, if anyone actually reads this thing. =)

Hawaii

We made it to Hawaii today. Yesterday was a marathon of packing and last minute purchases - we're exhausted. One day to relax and then a full day of flying on Thursday. Time to rest up...will update again soon.