So, where to begin. It's been a little shorter than a week in Bangkok, but feels more like a month. Time seems to pass by a lot slower here; could be because I've only been able to sleep in 3 hour stretches (jet lag??)
While trying to conquer the most basic Thai pleasantries, I ended up thanking people by saying "Korp Kun Ka". While this is very pleasant for a Thai woman to here, when spoken to a man basically means "thank you lady-boy". I'm surprised no-ones punched me in the groin yet.
I suppose I could take the time now to describe all of the amazing thing I've seen here but I'm hoping once all of the pictures load up, they'll speak for themselves. In Thailand (the land of wats, bots and twats) I've been mostly visiting the Wats (temples).
While taking a canal taxi back to Banglamphu (the backpacker's ghetto) I met with an ex pat named Mark who's been living in Thailand on and off for about ten years. This dude is basically the mayor of Khao San Road (the St. marks place of Bangkok). Went out partying with him a bunch, and the last night ended up hanging out with the underground Thai Punk rockers in various bars I wouldn't have attempted to go into otherwise. Cool bunch of people. Got really wasted and, not to be outdone by the Thais) spent the night eating fried insects (locusts, grasshoppers, meal worms and other undescribable horrors). Ended up in a karaoke bar till about 5am where I made the mistake of eating what turned out to be raw shrimp and caught some sort of "death but". I felt like death the next day and after pumping myself with antibiotic and antibacterial/microbial, feel better now.
Lastly I found out yesterday that my friend Anna, who's also trekking SE Asia, fractured her foot while in Phnom Penh. She flew into Bangkok, and is going to be tagging along with me, her enormous pack and crutches. It might be a good thing to have some one there to advise me against eating raw bottom feeders, no??
Some random notes/observations/thoughts:
-One night in Bangkok does in fact NOT make the hard man humble.
-For God's sake be good to the foreign tourists in your own cities. In a country where the people are very helpful (a good deal of which speak at least some English) and a portion of the road signs are rudimentarily translated into English, I'm having a hell of a time getting around.
-If you think you know what spicy food is, you know nothing. I've eaten soups here that made my tongue swell, and the veins it the temple of my head pulse.
-It's funny that at least half of the tourists here are non-native English speakers and have to use English (or Ang-grit) to speak to Thais. This means that they're speaking broken English to Thais that speak equally broken English. Somehow I feel that they better understand each other than when I speak to either group. When I'm not struggling to talk to Thai, I'm struggling to talk to German's or Spanish or Korean or Slovaks... you get the point.
