Shane's Trip Journal

Today is March 20 and I am in Krabi, far south west coast. Yesterday I was in Bangkok until 6pm with much of the day seeing more of the sights and then took overnight bus to Krabi. There was a big protest taking place between the Red Shirts and Yellow Shirts that I was hoping to see but ran out of time to get in that the area. Bangkok was busy preparing for a massive festival for the King's daughter (100's of thousands expected to attend one area of Bangkok) and yesterday was bustling with local people going from temple to temple because it was Buddha's birthday. The bus ride was about 14 hours total and I took two different buses to get here. My bungalow in Krabi is about 5 minute walk to the beach with every kind of store or restaurant your can imagine along the way. The weather is mild, roughly 80 degrees with plenty of humidity and occasional rain shower. People are nice and helpful. The tourist are from all over the world. I sat next to Larz from Germany on the bus and had a interesting conversation about Germany compared to the U.S. I met a young couple on the bus from Canada that were basically doing the same thing as I am with roughly a month of skipping around from place to place in Thailand and a Russian now living in New York took some pictures of me on the beach as well as having a good visit for a bit. The Russian gave me some good advice, he had rented a motorcycle and had an accident while riding. He was scrapped up and sore but looking like a full recovery. He said that the police showed up and determined it was his fault without giving him much of a chance to tell his side of the story, so he could either pay $3000 US or do some jail time. He paid but felt he had been unfairly treated and advised me to only take public transportation to ensure that this would not happen to me. The area of Bangkok that I stayed was a majority of young people but here in Krabi it appears there is more of the various age ranges. By the way, "Houston we have a Problem", they do not sell Skoal or as far as I can tell any type of chewing tobacco in Thailand. Oh well, I will just have to deal with it. So far the trip has been great.