Returning to Thailand from Cambodia was felt like leaving a compost heap and entering a pretty park with birds singing.
haha... ok, what a gross exageration.... but if you were to call them both 3rd world countries i'd be forced to tell you that you are WRONG. more appropriately, entering thailand after cambodia felt like leaving a 3rd world country and entering a 1st world country. the contrast did seem that stark indeed. buildings were neat and tidy, intact, less garbage blanketing the sides of roads and oh, the poverty! where has it gone? i had a child approach me asking me to buy something. i politely declined as i usually do, polite man that i am, and i was bracing myself for a steady decline of politeness in repeating 'no. no. no. no. NO NO NO NO!' as they pestered me. (i may be polite, but i'm certainly impatient at times.) behold! the child heard me! the child is moving on after one NO! i felt like kissing the soil.
another advantage of returning was my new take on the thai baht. where i once foolishly rounded the canadian dollar as 1/3 of 100 baht i have now taken a more realistic look at it as 1/4. 300 baht is NOT $10, either. i think i used to be more enthralled by the idea that everything was cheaper and i was ideally rounding it to more so i could gloat about how cheap it all is. the more i'm here, the more i realise that things aren't cheap and i think that's just me becoming accustomed to a way of life here.
if that makes sense...
maybe it's guilt? i went to a movie last night at the theatre... the cost of my ticket, popcorn, candy, drink AND tuk tuk ride to the theatre cost less than half of what the ticket alone would have cost in canada. but i still feel guilty spending all the money.
oh well.
returning to bangkok was something else. i knew exactly where we were by about half way through our taxi bus ride into the city, much to my amazement. we arrived on a saturday night and i don't recall ever being in bangkok on a weekend before... we walked through khaosan road to find a guest house to stay at because we just spent the day on a bunch of busses. it was neat seeing how unfazed we were by the insanity of it now after our first 2 visits to bangkok. turns out a friend we made in phnom penh was in bangkok the exact same days as we were too, en route to russia. nothing else really happened this time around, just a bit of reading and relaxing.
