Day Two in Bangkok. This city is pretty sooty and smoggy... we marvel that there must be few to no inspection laws in the country. For that matter, there might not be any traffic laws! Motorcyclists ride without helmets - but then again, apparently at least one person dies each hour from motorcycle accidents in the city. I mean, we have been riding around with 5 people crammed in one of those little tuk tuks!! but it's too fun to stop and think about the potential consequences.

Again, from Eil's journal,

"Well we have the day free before catching an overnight train to Chiang Mai. We asked the tuk tuk guy to meet us at 9am to take us round some more places. He picked us up and dropped us off at another Wat (there's loads of these things and you've had enough after the first dozen). Then he disappeared. He wasn't waiting, we hadn't paid him and it was scorching hot. Time to start walking.

Time to go on the night train to Chiang Mai - 12 hours to go, but at least we have beds. And there was a disco in the food cart. It was hilarious - cheesy music and flashing lights on the roof, with bugs flying in and out of the windows. After 10 songs, they were repeated- it was hilarious!"

Tommy had scheduled an optional boat tour for 200 baht (5 USD)-- we all joined in. Partly, the turn out was an effort to find out what the tour had to offer and party it was (I think) due to everyone's unease about the nature of people in Thailand. Most of us were shocked by their response to the white tourists coming through and felt very vulnerable. I think we all sought a bit of protection.

The boat tour was magnificent. Adam, Josh, Greg, Caroline and I agreed unanimously that it beat the $15 tour we took of the Singapore River, with the recording that sounded like Charlie Brown's mom most of the time, and when we could make it out, sounded, as Adam put it, "like a 4th grade report."

It took us up the river and into some canals on which houses were built-- like a little Venice, but not nearly so elaborate. We had to go through a lock/canal type thing when the tide was in. My first time through a lock! The houses were incredibly ramshackle. Almost all of them had steps or ladders into the water, and many Thai children were cooling off as we sped past. We could see adults squatting and working on laundry, fishing or mending fishing lines, some were cooking, others just relaxing. Most of the houses had two devotional temples by them, one with a single column and the other with four columns. Tommy explained to us the significance, but both Adam and I promptly forgot.

First stop was an orchid farm. Tommy explained to us how it worked and what each type of plant was. I've never seen them grown with so much ease!! They just soaked up moisture from the air - they're initially raised over troughs of evaporating water!

The next stop took us to an ordinary Buddhist temple where we fed the enormous catfish like creatures in the water. They, and the rhino fish on the other side of the temple completely caught me off guard. Not only were they huge, but they just sucked down large pieces of bread through a large mouth that was very reminisent of a shark's. In any case, Tommy then explained to us the basics of Buddhism which was quite interesting for me to hear in the actual setting of a temple.

We travelled down more narrow canals, some of which even had street signs. I would have killed to have my camera on that two hour tour-- there were so many beautiful photo opportunities!

We returned to the hotel just to pick up our belongings and head to the train station for Chang Mai.

By this time, we've come to realize that time doesn't mean a whole lot in Thailand. The meeting last night hardly started on time-- it was about an hour late! And as much as Tommy is obsessed with keeping our time limited - "nineteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds!" - they get things done when they feel like getting things done. I'm pretty sure the train was late setting off tonight!

Already happy to get out of Bangkok. Tremendously eager for the part of the trip I've been looking forward to most: the jungle trek. I imagine the air will be clean and the views spectacular.

Supposedly we set off the day after tomorrow, trek through the hill tribes for a day, trek and ride elephants the next day, and then raft down to our pick up location on the last day. But, Tommy says they're calling for rain, so the raft part might not work as the river swells enormously after a day's rain. it would be too dangerous to take a bamboo raft on. In fact, just before we arrived, there had been rain, and the train service to Chang Mai was cut off. We were wondering if we'd be able to make it up. It obviously clears out rather quickly.