I want to take every Thai person we've met, fold them up and put them in my pocket. I love it here!
So, I had about 13 hours of travel time between Athens and Bangkok, with a quick stopover in Bahrain, which actually looks like a really cool place, minus the oven-opening heat (as in: when you open the oven too fast and the heat rushes onto your face.. that's Bahrain).
Now I am in Bangkok with Brock, who arrived the day before me, and it's wonderful so far! Our first day in the city was yesterday and all we intended to do was head to McDonalds (because I have this thing about wanting to try one in every country) and we were being confused looking tourists poring over a map when this sweet little gentleman from the army stopped to chat with us and tell us about what to see in the city and that we were lucky because since they celebrate the queen's birthday for weeks, certain things were available to tourists for free that normally they wouldn't be allowed to see.
He then wrote out all the places to see and hailed us a tuk tuk driver, told him the terms of payment and sent us on our way! The tuk tuk is a wierd little 3 wheeled open-air taxi and it cost us 20 baht (maybe about 80 cents?) for the entire day of driving around! We saw the 50 foot golden Buddha, the laughing Buddha, the sitting Buddha, and some other Buddhist temples... yes, they're Buddhist here, go figure!
We also visited the Thai factory (and some other places the drivers always take you to so they can get a gas coupon from the vendors) and a tourist information centre where we booked our entire month in Thailand with a hilarious, and slightly pervy, agent named Max. We spend three more days in Bangkok, take an overnight train (which we're excited for because neither of us have ever been on a train before) to.. some place... where we take a quick boat to the island of Samui where we have a beach Bungalow!
The whole thing is a shockingly inexpensive experience compared to my 5 weeks in Greece with their damn Euro! For instance, at a restaurant beside the gigantic golden Buddha we each had soup and a huge plate of fried rice and (what I'm going to call) duck, plus a water and I think it came to less than a dollar each. So meals here are pretty darn reasonable!
Today we're just going to wander around, maybe purchase a very necessary umbrella. The day was beautiful and clear and hot, and then last night when we were walking back to the hostel it started absolutely pouring. Couldn't really see that far in front of me because it was coming down so fast, and we were probably only outside for 5 minutes but were completely drenched. It is the rainy season, next month is monsoon season though so we came at just the right interval!
So far it's great and everyone is amazingly sweet and helpful. It just smells a bit like fart.
