Four Months in Thailand

Today, we went everywhere in Bangkok. Anthony and I are on a mostly Thai schedule already. We woke up at 6:30 today, but only by accident because we thought we had orientation and had set a clock wrong.

We met a lot of the kids in our house. Most of them are pretty cool. There are two or three people from Germany, a handful of Americans, one Brit, and a few Canadians, plus some others that I don't really know. One girl was more familiar than us with the city, so she showed us around the immediate area of Salaya, the town we're living in, plus showed us which bus to take into Bangkok. Bangkok is an amazing city, with magnificent temples juxtaposed with slums.

We went to breakfast at a European style restaurant that also served Thai food. I got French Fries and also Stir-Fried Chicken with Cashews and Peppers. The food is not bad at all. The chicken was very good and so were the cooked cashews. The peppers weren't even bad at first, but the forth one that I ate was extraordinarily hot and ruined my mouth. I literally started sweating and my mouth felt like I had ate something that was too hot (temperature wise) and burned my tounge. Fortunately, the ginger ale I had cooled my mouth enough to finish the meal.

Then we went off an explored some amazing temples. There was one with a giant Buddha that was known as the "Reclining Buddha." He was 50 feet long and laying down. It was neat. Then we saw another couple of Buddhas, then we got Thai Massages. It was $8 for 1/2 hour and it was intense. The massages aren't like ours. They dig their fingers into your muscles and they do it hard. They also help crack your back and your fingers and toes. It hurt sometimes, enough to make me recoil. But it was nice afterwards, I felt very refreshed.

Then we visited some more temples, but to get there we had to cross the main river that Bangkok is situated around. Never in my life have I seen a river so brown. It looked like chocolate milk. At the temple, we had to climb up some nastily steep stairs to get to the top, but the view was gorgeous. It was a shame that I forgot my memory card for my camera and couldn't take any pictures.

By then we were tired, so we all decided to head back to Salaya. We had to walk through these pigeons. Thai people sell bird feed to people, but to slow them down so you don't ignore them, they throw feed to scores of pigeons and then basically put the feed in your hand, and then chase you insisting that you pay.

We got on the bus, which was super crowded and very hot. This whole place is incredibly hot, but made worse by constant humidity. I did get a seat on the bus though, eventually, which is nice because it's a 45 minute ride. We finally made it to Salaya and went to this giant, super outdoor open-air market that sold all kinds of stuff. I bought some chicken and Pringles potato chips there. Anthony bought a weird fruit with like, green hairy arms coming off it. They sold everything you can imagine there, all sorts of weird fruits and bizarre meats. You could even buy live snakes.

I've never been happier though to get back to the room. It was freshly cleaned by our maid person and nice and cool thanks to the gargantuan air conditioner. Now, I'm just eating this chicken and contemplating a shower. It was a good day, but I'm tired. So far, the food hasn't made me need to use the bathroom, but I might just be hesitant to because you can't just throw your toilet paper in the toilet, you have to wipe and then put it in a garbage can. It's silly and confusing and kind of gross that a bag of poop rags sits in our bathroom. Oh well. When in Thailand, do as the Thai do.