Can you say culture shock? My ride from the airport to my hotel for the first few nights allowed me to see a lot of things that we aren't too familiar with in Canada. First off the speedometer in my taxi driver's car didn't work, that's always good! Then I see people riding in the tailgate of trucks, normal enough you might say? Yes but maybe not on the highway going 120+km/h. Then as we get into town people on motorcycles are just like they describe them, dangerous and fearless! They are zigzagging between cars to get through as quickly as possible and never stay in a lane. The passenger never has a helmet and the women never sit on properly straddling the bike. No no, she'll sit with her two legs dangling on the same side, threatening to make her dangling flip flops fly away into the windshield of the driver behind them. Then we almost hit two stray dogs while trying to navigate through crazy traffic. The drivers don't seem to pay much attention which is weird because I think I saw more expensive and pimped out cars here than I do in Ottawa... hmmmm! And then there's the police, there's like 5-6 at the same corner but they don't do much, and if they do have something to say all they do is blow their whistle, yes I just said whistle and they point at whoever is doing something wrong. Quite efficient? doubt it! I'm just glad I decided to not bring my whistle, that would have been ironic, instead of people coming to help me since I blew my whistle, they would run away thinking it was the police...
Other than these little quirks that make Bangkok so much more fun, the people here are very nice and always trying to please you. My airport pickup was late so upgrade to deluxe superior room from my hotel, yes thank you! When I didn't have a phone to call my airport pickup, a nice lady offered for me to use her cellphone! The people here are very genuine and I can't wait to debute my journey... but first diner; my first pad thai in Thailand! It was very good but I didn't get the chance to eat an authentic one that they recommend you get at the street food market because they had all closed shop already for the day, weird considering it's supper time.
I am also very happy that I already met some people that are going to be studying in Thammasat and that makes things less stressful! So far so good :)
