Day 20: Phuket

6:30am. Wake.

Today is Ko Phi Phi day, with a 7:45 pick-up. I do a quick grab and go as K waits in the front for the minivan. I see L at the breakfast; she is waiting for X to come back from the bathroom. As I rush to the lobby with a breakfast sandwich for me and a French toast for K in hand, K runs by me to get L and X because the pick-up arrived. When I get to the lobby though, B who is also there waiting says the guy left. Eek.

After some time, the hotel receptionist manages to contact our travel agent who calls the guy and tells us to wait for him to come back. Guy comes back and we get tot he dock ok. Phew!

It's about 25-ish people per speedboat and if you decide to, you have to rent fins there on the doc because they're not otherwise available on the boat. At last minute, I decide to get fins just in case. After boarding the boat, our guide hands us each a snorkeling headset, which he tells us to be careful not to lose.

We speed out to our 1st stop... Kai Island (some places incorrectly spell it 'Khai Island'). Some people just lie on the beach but most go in the water. I try on the fins in the water but they don't work too well, so I just end up wearing my water shoes. The water bottom is very rocky with assorted coral and rocks. We love our underwater camera case!!



At one point, K and I both enter a spot with tons of medium-sized fish that every once in a while runs into me (with a stinging sensation), so I quickly leave the area.

Stop 2... Maya Island... where we have to choose either to stay on/near the beach or to snorkel. The boat drops the people out on the beach first for those who chose that option and then goes away a bit from the beach. The guide says it's 2-3 meters deep.

Beilie and Ling get into the water first but come back shortly, saying it's really tiring. After hearing that, K puts on a life jacket, too... I was going to wear one anyways to be safe (after all, I did miss passing the TIM orientation swim test). Yay for life jacket keeping me afloat so I can entirely focus on admiring the sea life!


Only after getting back on the boat at the end of snorkeling part 2, Xiao tells us we could have taken a watermelon piece with us to attract the fish (crew had chopped up watermelon). Oh well.

Buffet lunch on Phi Phi Don.

Snorkeling part 3... on Monkey Island. The finest sand grains I have ever felt... life jackets because it gets deep very fast. After snorkeling awhile, it starts to drizzle, quickly turning into full rain, and then a downpour.


We still snorkeled in the rain, but once it began pouring, people quickly made their way back to shore and their boats.

The boat speeded back to dock, 45 minutes or so away. Our seats were originally in the front of the boat, which offered no cover, so everyone crowded in the back. The back had a semi-cover, which was certainly better than the front. But it still didn't do much for shielding people from the wet and cold as rain poured through the cover's voids. Everyone, already wet, continued to get more drenched.


I stayed slightly warm with my towel wrapped around me. Interesting experience indeed!

10pm-ish. K and I have dinner at the same location as the first night but a different restaurant stand. On the way to dinner, we notice two middle-aged Caucasian males walking with two young clubby-dressed Thai women. Funky.

I order a noodle soup for dinner... not spicy and yummy. K orders two dishes, one of which is a Crab Fried Rice, 40B, only half the cost of his other dish and has a whole lot of crab meat. Yummy!

At dinner, the table next to ours also has two middle-aged Caucasian guys sitting with two "nicely" dressed young Thai women. Again, funky. Maybe funkier because it's "late" dinner. Then, looking at the other tables, I notice almost every row of tables has at least one table with a middle-aged Caucasian dude with some Thai woman. Hmm... maybe I'm just making something out of nothing.

Pick up a drink at 7-Eleven (lychee) and our laundry, which smells nice but the stains on my light jacket are still there. I thought they would do a better job than me washing it by hand myself, but I guess not. Oh well.

Back at hotel. After some talk (and K losing his temper), the front desk manager gives us a 1000B discount off our Christmas dinner for the cockroaches we encountered. He says he can't give us a room discount because we booked through an intermediary and not directly with the hotel... and we already fully paid so he can't refund any money. It's a take it or leave it offer, saying we're lucky to get anything. He cited another guest who found a rat (!) in their room, and just made a comment, not a complaint like us and didn't ask for nor get any discount. Sheesh.

I accept the offer. I could say 'no' based on principle, but principle in this one doesn't really have any practical benefit is the way I see it.

Sleep. 1am.

Day 19: Phuket

9am. Wake.

Today is lazy day. Started with a leisurely breakfast (unlike yesterday's rush). Followed by a bit of rest and then down to the pool and staked out a couple of pool chairs. I ran through the kiddie mushroom sprinklers to get wet and then we both got in the pool and swam around for a bit.



Sat on the chairs for a few hours, me catching up on writing, and K playing GBA. Around 1pm, this guy came around with tiny pizza slices. I didn't really understand what he said so he started going away and then this other guest by the pool came over and said she ordered the pizza, but it's apparently free between 1 and 1:30 everyday. Someone just needs to order it and then they bring tiny slices for everyone by the pool. Turns out the pizza guy was asking "taste?" as in, "do you want to try a sample?".

After 5:30 we realize the time and rush out. We're supposed to be picked up at 6:30 for the Fantasea show.

Drop off our jeans at the 10B per piece laundry place and then make our way towards the beach for dinner. The few places next to the beach have very reasonable prices... same range as any other restaurant around the area. We pick one that has a decent view of the sunset and ask the guy to rush our order... a pad Thai, basil pork, and banana pancake. The sunset is pretty as always...


I finish half my noodles and box the rest with the banana pancake, and K manages to chomp down all his basil pork (too spicy spicy for me).

We get back to the hotel a little after 6:30, but our driver is late. What is supposed to be a private car for the five of us (did we misunderstand?) is actually a minivan with other guests. We're the first ones aboard and he rushed to pick up the rest... rushes, meaning heavily tailgating other cars, then passing them using the oncoming car lane while intentionally putting his feet on both brake and accelerating to make the van extra loud, or passing cars on the shoulder if there is one. It's like a rollercoaster ride.

Arrive at Fantasea at a perfectly fine time. The "attractions" turn out to be just carnival games and lots of stores in which to shop. The games are same as ones you would see at a carnival or amusement park in the US, but all more cutesy and with much cuter prizes.


The show starts at 9pm. They confiscate everyone's video and camera supplies but I manage to snake mine past, not that I take any pictures inside with it. I just didn't want to wait in a long line to check-in and then another long line to get it back later.

Outside the 'theater'...


The show lasts for a little less than an hour. The beginning makes it seem like it'll be a cohesive story, but the "plot" (or non-plot) is disappointing. Most of it is a Thai cultural show, with the addition of some laser lights, a comedic magic show, and some elephant tricks at the end. Somewhat interesting. K's favorite part was the elephants... and I could have done fine without the magic portion. At 2000B (~ $55) per person ("gold seat" tickets (250B for front & center) + transportation), it's a toss-up as to whether it was worth it. I suppose it's an "experience".

Sleep. 12 midnight.

Day 18: Phuket

6am. Wake.

K is to take a shower. Encounter with cockroach #1 in the bathtub. We speculate it must have fallen from the ceiling and then got stuck in the bathtub, unable to crawl out. A while after a distressed call to the front desk, a maintenance guy knocks on our door. He comes in, uses his walkie talkie antenna to pin the cockroach, picks it up via its antennae, and removes it from the room.

We have a minibus/van pickup at 7:45 for our 'James Bond 4 in 1' day trip. The van waits until 8:05 before it finally leaves the hotel; we assume it was waiting for someone else at the hotel who never showed up. The van goes to a couple other hotels to pick up people and then drops us off to transfer to our normal tour bus.

There are people signed up for the 2-in-1, 3-in-1, and 4-in-1 on the bus. Our tour guide's name ("hollywood name") is Cindy, a friendly middle-aged Thai woman. It's 50 minutes to Phang-Nga (on the mainland coast), our destination. Cindy begins by telling us about our itinerary for the day and then goes on to tell us various facts about Phuket and Thailand.
...The first people to come to Phuket Island were Malaysians... I guess they were Muslims because they're called Thai Muslims now.
...Phuket comes from a Malay word meaning hill.
...Phi Phi Island is named after the abundant Phi-a-Phi trees on the island.
...Patong, where our hotel is located, means 'dating'.

Rubber tree plantations...
Things about people who plant rubber... they have to wake up *really* early. (They wake up when the tourists come back from their bars.) They come out with huge rubber shoes to protect them against poisonous snakes and other poisonous creatures and they put a torchlight on their head. They walk around slitting trees to get the sap and then come back later to collect all the sap (reminds me of maple trees). Then they go back to their house. They lay the sap out on a sheet, add some water and some sulfuric acid, mix mix mix, flatten it with a piece of wood, roll the result in some machines, and then sell it.

The rubber trees give seeds every year and apparently the rubber plantation people can tell the good seeds from the bad. After a rubber tree is planted, they have to wait 7 years before it starts producing the latex sap. During the 7 years, they have another source of income, like growing other crops - pineapples, etc. The crops do double duty... because they also protect the baby rubber trees from the intense sun and other elements. The trees will produce rubber for 40/45 years and live for 100 years.

It's high tourist season in Phuket... because the best weather runs from the end of November to the beginning of February.

Our first stop was an elephant camp. Elephant trekking... my second ride on an elephant and much bumpier than the one in Siem Reap. The ground here was very uneven, unlike the flat ground in Siem Reap. A third of the way through, our trainer gets off the elephant and asks us for our camera to take pictures for us. We thought after taking a picture, he would get back on the elephant, but he didn't. Instead, he just walked on and every once in a while would voice commands to the elephant. Sometimes he would continue on without looking back, not noticing the elephant wasn't following. Then he would turn around, see the distance, and yell some more commands until the elephant caught up.


Almost at the end, he asked one of us to climb forward off the seat and sit directly on the elephant, but we both decided against it (which I shortly regretted). He got back on the elephant and then navigated into a small pond that the elephant swam through... a much smoother ride than it walking on land. The couple behind us...


Post ride, we stayed at the camp for a bit, drank some tea, rode on an ox cart, and played with some mangrove monkeys... and then returned to the bus.

The next stopping point was adjacent to Phang-Nga bay where Cindy had us all get a life jacket and board a boat similar to the klong boats in Bangkok. Off we went... to James Bond Island. A short stop to climb up and down some of the island's steps.


Stop at a Muslim fishing village for lunch. Locals' buildings filled half the village and the other half was obviously built as a tourist food stop. Lunch was pretty decent... soup, fried rice, a bunch of Thai dishes, and fresh fruit. The Thai dishes were not spicy, catering to tourist taste buds.

Took the boat to a bigger boat from which we boarded the sea canoes (flat bottom boats because some areas can be quite shallow depending on the time of day and the tides). Each canoe sat two people plus the "canoe boy" who did all the paddling.


The sea canoeing was very cool. We got to go in a bunch of areas that required everyone to lie down flat in the boat because the entrances were that low. (Waterproof camera case served us quite well here as I didn't have to worry about getting the camera wet.)


After canoeing, we got back on the klongish boat back to the pier. (Note, the usage of the life jackets was kind of silly... we wore it while on the klongish boat and took it off each time we got off. We did wear it for the canoeing though.)

Bus to monkey cave temple that had a whole lot of wild mangrove monkeys outside and a small reclining Buddha (when compared to the ones in Bangkok & Ayutthaya) and tallish cave inside.


Then, a short 10-minute stop at a cashew factory store, where we learned cashews come from cashew fruits that grow on trees, each fruit containing one nut, and each tree producing over 1000 fruits per year. We also got to sample Cashewy, a drink made from cashews and apples. According to the info pamphlet there, it got "added to Thailand's herbal miraculous drinks" recently.


Some people bought quite a bit of food goodies from the store. The bus then dropped off everyone at their respective hotels.

Dinner ended up being at this place where you picked your own fresh seafood (Phuket has no lack of seafood places) and tell them how you want it cooked. The split of food and bill was a bit more complicated here because - K didn't want seafood so he got his own dish by himself (but then he wanted to share the one vege dish), and I wanted to partake in all the seafood dishes with the exception of the lobster (which ended up being 1500B = ~ $40, so I'm glad I stayed out of that one).

Some time at the internet cafe looking through some of our pictures.

Back at the hotel, cockroach #2 encounter >_<

Sleep. 1am.

Day 17: Phuket

8:30am. Wake.

We lazily wake up and eventually make it down to breakfast before it ends at 10:30. The breakfast choices are good, with a decent variety... french toast, pancakes, cook-to-order eggs, various breads, bacon, sausage, fried noodles, fried rice, other hot foods, yogurt and toppings, and lots of fruits.


We rush through breakfast though because on the way down we bump into BLX who say they're going to a spa (for which they made a 11:30 appt)! After much deliberation, I decide to join them to check out "the spa experience" and K also will tag along.

It takes ~20 minutes to drive out to the spa. Once there, I feel pressured to get a package, which was what I was afraid would happen. So, I end up with a 2-hr treatment with body scrub and massage for 2300 baht discounted to 1955 baht (~ $60) because Xiao has a coupon. BLX all pick greater than $100 packages. Apparently, Xiao gets a massage once a week and goes for full spa treatments every now and then. It *is* somewhat relaxing, but is the $ worth it? It also doesn't help that there's a huge daddy long legs type spider and half a broken spider web in one of the ceiling corners of the room I'm in... so that I see it whenever I'm lying face up on the spa table. Blah.

Cookies and tea after the treatment (elephants are everywhere)...


I find the walking around afterwards as we wait for BLX to finish their 3-hr treatments nice though. The spa has lots of water and open space and feels somewhat serene. I probably should have just brought a good book to read while BLX got their treatments. It would have been free and still relaxing.


After the spa, BLX take the taxi to check out a couple of beaches, of which K and I opt out. So, we take our own ride arranged by the spa back to the hotel... which costs 300B vs the 400B taxi originally arranged by the hotel.

We then go to the travel agency [as directed by the hotel peeps] to book our 'James Bond 4 in 1' prize. Turns out 'James Bond' is for 'James Bond Island', one of the stops on the tour. The island was renamed to James Bond Island after one of the James Bond movies had a scene from there (a 30 yr-old move... something like 'Man with the Golden Gun'). We book the tour for the next day. It's a day trip with 4 in 1... elephant riding/trekking, James Bond Island, a cave temple, and sea canoeing. We also check out some of the options for Ko Phi Phi day trips.

Getting back to the hotel, we meet Beilie who says she passed a travel agency that offered the Ko Phi Phi day trip for 1400 baht... all the other travel places were over 2000 baht. So, we all head out to that agency and end up booking our Phi Phi trip with the lady there. Beilie and Ling also decide to sign up and join us for the 'James Bond 4 in 1' for tomorrow.

BLX also want to sign up to see a show called FantaSea. (There's basically two shows in Phuket - that and Cabaret.) The brochure touts..."magical illusions, 4-D effects, aerial ballet, acrobatics, pyrotechnics, special effects, exciting stunts, and an elephant circus". After much deliberation (it's 2000B = ~ $55), we decide to do it, too, and the agent books seats for the four of us.

We then walk down the streets looking for dinner, or late lunch. We all hadn't eaten since breakfast. We end up eating in this area with a row of outdoor "restaurants". Each one would be 'in your face' trying to get you to eat at them as you walk by. Checking out all the menus and somewhat randomly picked one. After dinner, K and I each buy a pair of water shoes. I wanted a pair because Sean recommended it for water trips and then K ended up buying a pair, too. Starting price 350B per pair and we ended up paying 200B per pair after friendly negotiations.

Side note: 7-Elevens are on almost every block (literally) near our hotel.

Sleep. 11pm.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Day 16: Phuket, Thailand

On our plane ride to Phuket, we sat next to an Australian woman who was planning on sailing from Phuket to Crete! She was going with some friends who had already set sail from Australia a while ago and with whom she would catch up. She said their expected arrival in Crete was sometime in April... after 4 months of sailing!

I think we got overcharged for our taxi. Phuket was apparently the only place K didn't read about and prepare for because he said he wasn't really all too interested in it. So, the taxi counter inside the airport charged us 550 baht but supposedly just getting a metered taxi would only cost 450 baht ($3 rip off, bah). We're staying at a place in Patong, 40km from the airport.

Some of the streets look similar to Bangkok, except with fewer street vendors and many small shops. I'm hoping things aren't too much more expensive than they were in Bangkok though.

We're only a little late for the compulsory $68 (US dollars) Christmas dinner. I can't imagine any dinner being worth $68 per person, but that's just me. Everyone enjoys spending $ on different things I suppose. There was a lot of food to eat... seafood, satays, various salads, lots of fruit and dessert, etc.



The entertainment first started out with some fire twirling... then a dance and cabaret type show with transsexual dancers. K didn't believe the "girls" were transsexual at first (because their legs were too good/girly), but Beilie said she heard them talking to each other after the show and Ling said she saw their Adam's apples. After the cabaret part, there was traditional Thai music and dancing.



There were also games... like five couples chosen from the audience and the winner was which blindfolded girl could feed a banana to their guy the fastest, or musical chair chairs in which all the volunteers picked were little kids... prizes... and random music to which you could dance (with people lip-syncing and guitar-syncing to the music on stage... don't know why they couldn't just DJ the music without the extra people lip-syncing).

Prizes... they gave out some random prizes (each guest got a raffle into the drawing). A little after Beilie, Ling, and Xiao (finally arrived in the middle of dinner!) went back up to their rooms, they drew for the "grand prizes". Something like 10 of them. If they called your table and you weren't there, then they would draw again until they got to a table that was there. I counted something less than twenty or so tables left (out of over 15)... guess everyone thought there wasn't really much else... it was 9 or 10pm afterall. K said to me during the 3rd or 4th prize, "ok, the next one is ours, room 1213" and sure enough, it was! I was in disbelief for quite a while at the timing of his comment. We won some "James Bond 4 in 1 tour", whatever that meant.


A while later, table 5, Beilie, Ling, and Xiao's table also got a prize, for which I pretended to be one of them and went up to accept... it was a 3-night stay at the hotel between March and December 2007. Xiao ended up taking it since the island resort thing is right up her alley.

There was one table that won 4 prizes! They had 5 people all run up on stage to accept each prize every time... it was like a group of 10 people at the table.

The hotel room is "ok", almost three times as expensive and not as nice as our Siem Reap room.

Sleep. 12 midnight.

Day 7.01: Bangkok => Hanoi

6am. Wake for our 10:20am flight to Hanoi.

Quick free breakfast at the hotel (~$38 per night for the room!)...


The taxi ride is 400B (~$12) to the airport, a supposedly negotiated fixed fare by the hotel, but the driver tries to charge us 500B (~$15) when we arrive at the airport (tries!).

We had forgotten all about the 500B/person country departure fee, so K exchanges more money at the airport to pay for it.

Bangkok airport is pretty cool looking... like a bunch of caterpillars...


They also have prayer rooms at the airport...


Bangkok modes of transportation used:
taxi, river boat (straight up/down & cross), feet, klong boat (canal), subway (metro), skytrain, tuktuk, train

Mosquito bites added: 0... yay!

Day 6: Bangkok & Ayutthaya

8am. Wake.

Head out and take the 11:20am train to Ayutthaya, the first capital of Thailand... a very wealthy and intellectual city until the whole city was burned and destroyed by Burmese soldiers in one of the many wars between Thailand and Burma.

While waiting at the train station, we befriend a family of Canadians from Toronto. They're spending a month in Thailand and had only booked their first two nights. Everything else is scheduled and booked along the way... a few days in Bangkok, 2 days, in Ayutthaya, 2 weeks in Changmai, etc. They were unfortunate their first day in that they got in a tuktuk (at the police station, so they thought they could trust the guy) who took them to all these shopping areas and random travel agency. Before they knew it, the travel agent had a whole schedule for them for the next two weeks and when they tried to take the itinerary sheet with prices, the agent crumpled it up and said it was only valid that day and they couldn't take the sheet with them. Craziness.

Train station... first experience using a squat toilet. 2 baht service fee to use the toilet... and bring your own bathroom tissue.

The train to Ayutthaya... 1.5 hours... 15B per person (~45c), cheaper than any other transportation we had used in Bangkok. It's a class 3 train which meant it wasn't air-conditioned; however, it did have rotating fans and was quite breezy, breezy enough to have all these small dandelion seeds and what not covering me by the end. Beilie said compared to the trains in China, this train was "ok".

We didn't really have a detailed plan for the day, just get there and see ruins. The tour book said the best way for getting around was by bike, but I can't bike :-/ At the Ayutthaya station, we're approached by a tuktuk driver who offers to take us around for three hours. A sign nearby has the fixed fares for tuktuks to various locations as well as a message that says 200 baht per hour and another board has pictures and names of all the drivers. The driver offered 3 hrs for 900B before we saw the sign... and Beilie asked for 500B. We eventually get the 3 hrs for 500B... through maybe just insistence... I thought the driver had agreed to 500, K didn't but went ahead and insisted and pressured the driver. B later also said she didn't think the driver had already agreed to the 500... oops, my bad.

The ruins are all fairly similar. The Burmese really wrecked it all. And all the statues around have severed heads (not sure if that was supposed to be symbolic in some way)...


A requisite Buddha-head-in-a-tree picture...


One of the wats was renovated; strange that all the Buddha statues had water cups in front of them...



There was an opportunity to ride elephants near one of the wats, but it was really overpriced so we decided to skip it. Hopefully more opportunities will arise later.

When we got back to the train station, we thought we had just missed the train to Bangkok and would have to wait another two hours for the next turn. But it turns out the train was just about to arrive. As K fumbled to pay for tickets, B and I rushed over to the just-arrived train. The train ride back was much more crowded, so we had to sit in separate seats.

Upon arriving in Bangkok, K picked out a place to eat that required going on the subway and skytrain. The subway and skytrain is different from what we're used to... they play music videos in the waiting area (and on the train itself)... right before you get on, there's these arrows that tell how to get on and off... and instead of rechargeable cards, the subway uses these little token-like things...


The eatery got a good review in Nancy Chandler's Bangkok map companion, which I took to mean that it was now probably overpriced and catered to tourists. I was right. The meal ended up cost 738B (~$23), by far our most expensive meal yet. However, it was a nice restaurant, air-conditioned, tastefully decorated, and the food was yummy (perhaps less spicy, too).

On the way back to our hotel, I picked up a passion fruit juice (freshly squeezed, of course), the same stand from which we got guava and yellow watermelon juices the previous day.

Shower. Cleanup. Hopefully all our clothes (from "laundry" two days ago) will be fully dry by tomorrow morning.

Sleep. 12 midnight.

Day 5: Bangkok, Thailand

7:30am. Wake.

After morning stuffs and breakfast, we rush out to the river boat stop to make a 9:30am tour at the National Museum, the *only* English tour of the *week*. The river boats confuse us a bit because there's no one selling tickets like there was yesterday. Thankfully, a nice Thai guy helps us and tells us we can buy the ticket on the boat. He also lets us know we're to get off at stop 9 (not 8 like yesterday, even though we're essentially going to the same area as yesterday).

9:26. Just in time for the tour. Our tour guide is a British lady who's lived in Thailand for the past 16 years. She said her husband originally got a job transfer to Thailand for a few years and then when he was to be transferred back to England, it was a to be a different area than where they were from and they liked Thailand, so he found a job in Thailand and stayed. She was very knowledgeable about Thai history, religion, and culture.

One of the stories she told during the tour was about the Thai/Hindu god Ganesh, an elephant child god, the son of Shiva. While Shiva was away, his wife gave birth to their child. One day, the wife went in to take a bath and told the child to not let anyone into the house. Shiva returned, the child refused him entrance to his own home, and since Shiva was away and did not know his child had been born, he lost his temper and chopped off the kid's head. His wife came out of her shower to find her child in a sad state, so Shiva said he would send out his servant to bring back the head of the first creature they saw, which turned out to be an elephant. Most of the Thai gods have an animal mode of transportation and this god's was a rat. The god loved to eat snacks. One day after eating many sweets, he went out atop his rat. The rat was scared by a snake and the god lost his balance and fell of his rat. Having eaten so much, his stomach burst open, letting out all his sweets. He didn't want to waste all those sweets, so he pushed them back in his stomach and tied the snake around himself as a bandage. The stories are quite odd indeed.

No pictures were allowed in the buildings =( We saw very many statues of Buddhas from all centuries and countries. The representations of wheel, deer, bodi tree, and chedi were all made in stone for hundreds of years before the first Buddha statues. Buddhism traveled as far west as today-Afghanistan... and there it met Greeks who settled in the area... so, a lot of the first statues were from that area (Greeks used to making statues of their gods)... statues with Buddha sitting, with a halo and a toga... very Greco-Roman style. Other statues took on facial qualities similar to the groups of people who created them (mon people, khmer, etc).

In Thailand, there are approx. 30,000 (or was it 300,000?) male monks and only 5 female monks. If you're female, you can't get ordained in Thailand... you have to go to Sri Lanka.

Elephant at the National Museum...


Post museum, we got into a taxi to go to Siam Square, a big shopping district. Taxis here are slower but cheaper, but the traffic got so bad (we were hardly moving anywhere at a reasonable rate) and we were near a boat stop, so we asked the taxi driver to drop us off at the klong boat stop. The klong boats are smaller boats that travel on small canals throughout the city (vs the river ferry on the big Chao Phraya river).

Siam Square malls are even more hip looking than the KLCC in KL. We eat at the Asian food court in Central World Mall. They hand you a card on your way in that your food gets charged to and then you pay on your way out after eating. The prices are comparable or slightly higher than street stalls and it's indoor and a/c-ed.

K fails on his first dish... way too spicy (he had asked the food person if the item was spicy and she said it was very spicy, which of course, meant it was very very very spicy)... so he got another dish.

Inside Central World mall...


Walk across the other malls and out to Jim Thompson's house... supposedly the larget still-existent teakwood house in the world. He was a silk trader who adopted Thai ways. Our tour guide (you can only walk through the house with one of the guides... and it was free ^o^) was a young petite Thai lady who smiled whenever she spoke... I thought she was really cute.

Sky train to Lumpini Park. I had read about and completely forgotten about the free aerobics in the park... well, first thing we saw was the massive free aerobics... guy on a stage, loud music, leading *tons* of people through the moves. And there were several aerobics groups throughout the park, too. Aside from the aerobics, there were many running/jogging (one guy had a car tire tied around his waist which he dragged along as he jogged), bicycling, lifting free & bar weights (free area), playing badminton/tennis, doing random exercises, etc. The massive free aerobics...


Dinner at a noodle shops close by. I learned if something is not marked spicy but has 'thai style' in the name, it means the dish is spicy.

Burger king with vendors...


MRT (subway) back to a stop close to the hotel. Noticed something... on the escalator, everyone stands on the left hand side and the people who want to pass, pass on the right (flip-flopped, just like the roads).

Picked up fresh squeezed guava and yellow watermelon drinks along the way... practically all juices are fresh squeezed here... total for two drinks = 40B (~$1.20)

Encountered on walk back to hotel, expos for everything...


No shortage of cute things here...


Sleep. 11pm-ish.

Day 4: Bangkok, Thailand

9am. Wake.

There's a complimentary breakfast that runs until 10amm which we just make by going down at 9:50. At first, we thought it would just be like standard US continental fare because they said free "American breakfast". But it turns out to be various foods. I get my fill of eggs, xi fan, sauteed & pickled veges, chicken sausage, sweet soybean milk, fruit.

Day 1 in Bangkok is sightseeing... which consists of mostly wats (temples). We walk through Chinatown (our hotel location) past all the shops & stalls (lots of cute goodies!) to the river ferry stop. We take that down a few stops and then the cross-river ferry to see our first... Wat Arun.


Then the cross-river ferry back to the other side and walk to Wat Pho... which houses a gigantic statue of a reclining Buddha...


To go inside, we must remove our shoes. All entrances to the prayer room (and traditional Thai houses) have a raised threshold that you must step over. A Thai animist belief is that bad spirits travel along flat surfaces of the ground... the raised threshold keeps them out as long as you step *over* the threshold. Stepping on the threshold brings the bad spirits in with you :-/

Walk down to the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. There's all these people there (aside from the many tourists)... all these Thais sitting on the ground or in chairs. Turns out the prince is supposed to give a speech later in the day there.


Model of Angkor Wat at Wat Phra Kaew, a nice precursor to the real one we will see later in our itinerary...


Cool monk feeding the pigeons outside the Grand Palace...


Next, Khao San road, a bustling touristized marketplace (doesn't quite compare to KL's Petaling or Chow Kit markets though)...


End up eating a somewhat overpriced late lunch (still comparatively cheap when compared to US foods). We also pick up a few drinks along the way. When we first got to the street, I saw several street vendors selling made-to-order banana crepe-like goodies, but sadly they disappeared by the time we're finished eating. We did buy a strawberry pearl icy drink to make up for it.

Taxi back to the hotel where we rest for a bit.

We head out to eat dinner. After some language difficulties, we manage to get our dinner at one of the street stalls... approx 40B (~$1.20) per person. The street that we eat on is very narrow, especially with the street food vendors. But for some reason, cars insist on driving through. So once in a while, a car comes up, all the vendors get up and move their stalls aside, the car squeezes through, and the vendors move back. And this happens several times during our meal.

Laundry. Hand-washed everything with woolite and hung up to dry. The original line, held up by suctions at both ends of the tub, fell down *3* times... and we finally gave up all hope of it working. So K took out some of the thin rope we packed and made a makeshift line in the bathroom. The rest of the clothes got hung on hangers to dry... hangers which were attached to the clothes rack, i.e. non-removable, which made it somewhat difficult.

Bangkok first impressions: I thought the pollution in KL was bad, but in Bangkok, it's much worse. You're always smelling the smog and god knows what else that comes out of the cars, buses, and tuk-tuks. Girl on the plane was right. So, very crowded, unending traffic, unending smog and pollution, lots of yummy food, spicy yummy food, seems to be large gap between 'rich' and 'poor'. (Like any other big city, the streets have their beggars and homeless sleeping on benches... though the amount of homeless I encountered was more than I've seen in Boston or NYC.)

Oh, and most of the dates we see around are not the year 2006, but year 2459.

Sleep. 10:30pm-ish.