Hi!
So, I'm in Thailand now. Everything I'd heard about Bangkok seems to be true...very noisy, BUSY, and smoggy. You see some very odd things walking around....people everywhere, motorcycle taxis, tuktuks, whatever. I arrived yesterday afternoon around 3pm after a hellish day of travel. (I say hellish b/c it was long, but it wasn't so bad...i was too excited to mind!)
I left Bryans place in Taipei at about 11pm on Monday night...he took me on his scooter to the bus station and i found my way out to the airport from there. Once there, however, I had to wait until my flight at 7am the next morning. Long wait in a mostly deserted airport. I had a long conversation with 2 Taiwanese police officers, about Canada, and snow, and how long I was in Taiwan, and if I wanted to come back...they were funny. They told me that I was beautiful (!) and should come back to teach english. Then they gave me directions to their station and told me to come visit next time. Haha.
The flight to Singapore was about 5 hours, I watched 'the sisterhood of the traveling pants' and slept a whole lot. The food on Singapore Air is amazing, at least the veggie stuff is! Its all been veggie indian food so far and its been awesome.
Landing in Singapore was a matter of disembarking one plane, and boarding another....within a couple of hours I was in Thailand!
I found a cab at the airport no problem ~ I'm pretty sure I overpayed (400 baht) but I dont' mind. 100BHT = approx $3CDN. I was falling asleep in the cab, I guess exhaustion was finallly taking over...the kind of exhaustion where you are literally fighting to keep your eyes open. I was dreaming in seconds, then opening my eyes...my head was bobbing for sure. The cabbie was laughing at me!!!!!
My hotel here seems nice, although I am gonna need to find something else for tomorrow night...the trains to Chiang Mai are booked tomorrow, and I only have 1 more night booked at the Asia Hotel. Its expensive, anyways....I paid about $40US/night for my room. A/C, TV, hot shower, 2 swimming pools (5th and 12th floors!!) and a bunch of restaurants too. Way too big for my liking, but fine for acclimatizing! Its actually freezing with the ac on high, i turned it off within minutes of being in the room.
When i got in i went to take a walk around.....found a shopping mall with diesel jeans for about $6-20, and abercrombie&fitch t's for $3....tons of knockoff stuff. Managed to hold off on the shopping, but I did get a pedicure for 150bht, and then an HOUR foot massage, incl. lower leg and complementary head massage, for 180bht. so nice. I also found a great restaurant, a hole in the walll really, where they made me a veggie stir fry with garlic/onion, baby corn (fresh not canned), asparagus, celery, and bokchoy. Comes with rice, 50bht. I was stuffed. I passed out quickly and didnt wake up til 10am.
Met up with some guy from Minnesota (lonely planet website, ya!!!!!) and we met in front of Jim Thompsons House. Read up on him on the internet, I'm sure if you google his name there will be tons, Interesting how he disappeared in Malaysia...!!!!!! He disappeared in 1967 while hiking in the Cameron Highlands in central Malaysia. When he came to Bangkok he apparently did quite a bit for the silk industry, brought it into the mainstream...His house was pretty beautiful, right along a canal, he had some traditional Thai homes (teak) dismantled and rebuilt in Bangkok. Full of SE asian artifacts and paintings. They force you to take a tour, 100bht, but its worth it because the thai girl who leads the tour is sweet. Her english is passable and amusing....although admirable ~ my thai is nonexistant! I think Im gonna try and take a class in Chiang Mai. So far, I know "sawat dee kha" which means hello. Um, thats it. I guess its gonna be the same as what I learned in Chinese, which was thank you ~ shui shui. One word per country!!!!! Sheesh. Will have to fix that.
The guy, Steve, turned out to be a bit of a dork. Short, and white, and sweaty. Like most foreigners (farang!) look to be. But we are taking the train to Chiang Mai (northern thailand) together on friday....good to have someone to talk to. He's planning on teaching english there for a year. We talked and he says he's never been to Canada. ?? I guess he figures why bother. Strange attitude re. Canada, but otherwise really quite nice. I dropped him at his hotel and now am wandering around, went to Starbucks (hahaha! I've been to starbucks in vancouver, oakville, los angeles, taipei, and now bangkok...its like a starbucks world tour!!!!!!) I also found a Boots drugstore, they have everything here. From what I've heard, Chiang Mai is very different, much smaller, and more to do....probably that means that the stuff to do is more accessible. Im going to hop on their Skytrain soon and see if I can't find something interesting. I haven't taken any pix yet, but I'll fix that this aft! Its about 3;30pm here on Wed right now.
Its hot, but I like it. Doesn't feel much different from a really hot day in Toronto..humid and smoggy. All the better to melt the fat off my body!! ahah. I'm definatelly drinking a lot of water...have had 3 bottles already and am still thirsty. Bad sign. I have also bought a pineapple from street vendors a couple of times...so good. they cut it up right in front of you, put it in a plastic bag with a wooden skewer to stab bits with, and charge you 10bht. Yum. Theres also other fruit, but i've been warned to stay away from watermelon. Has apparently been plumped up with tap water. I'll let you know if I get sick! So far its only been once, in Taipei when I ate something that had been deep fried in animal fat. Ew. It was tasty, but my body sure rejected it!
Anyways, Looks like you had a good thanksgiving.....keep sending me pix mini if you can. Its nice to see everyone. Let me know all about any news. I will keep you all posted from here, the internet at this cafe costs about 20bhat/20min. not bad I guess.
I'm getting bored typing, so I will write again from Chiang Mai I guess. Talk soon,
xoxo Laura
