I spent a long bus ride from Siem Reap to Bangkok yesterday. The border crossing was crazy busy and took over 2 hours to get through the Thai side. I got a lot of reading done! The first thing I noticed in Thailand were the roads- they are nice! And you can actually go over 30 mph on them! We were zipping along at such a fast pace I actually got a little nervous- I'm now used to swerving/slamming on the brakes to avoid random livestock, kids, pushcarts and giant pot holes. And this is the most cars I've seen since Beijing! That was a bit of a shock as well. Normally everyone's on motos or tuk tuks. It was dark by the time I got to Bangkok, despite leaving Siem Reap at 8 am. The first cabbie refused to turn on his meter and said he'd take me to my guesthouse for 500 Baht (about $16). Hell no! I told him to use his meter. He then said, ok, 400 Baht. Um, no. So I got out and found another taxi, which only cost 99 Baht with the meter. Come to find out it's illegal for cabbies to not use the meter and I could have reported him. My guesthouse is interesting. The room looks like a college dorm room with bunk beds in front of the windows, a desk and cheap TV stand. There's even a Bart Simpson poster on the wall saying "Eat my shorts"! Definitely NOT what the pictures on the website looked like! Oh and there's a taped-up hole in the ceiling. Ah, the joys of traveling. I have to go to the US embassy today to get more pages put in my passport. It costs $82! For some extra pages! Seriously! Will take the Sky Train there. Much better then a taxi due to such heavy traffic. It is hot as ever in Bangkok- no change there. But I must be acclimating to the heat because I actually had to turn off the air con last night and just sleep with a fan. It got too cold!
