anyway, when i first got on the train there weren’t a lot of people on there yet and the few that were on there were together and my seat was next to one of them. they all looked at me, then looked at each other and began to say something. they didn’t seem too thrilled that I was in their section, they didn’t seem mean or anything, just not thrilled. They were a family and the one girl around 22, asked me where i’m from and she said that she lived in phili last year for a little while, she was friendly, but she wasn’t staying on the train, just sending off her family that came to Bangkok for her graduation. So her mother was the one beside me and once the train got moving she got up and moved to a different seat but left her purse sitting on the chair beside me, at least she trusted me about an hour into the trip she had moved to the seat in the row in front of mine on the other side where another woman had been sitting. the woman that was sitting there previously had moved to the space behind my seat (i was in the last row) and laid on the floor to sleep. I didn’t understand this and even smelled my armpits to make sure i didn’t stink, and i didn’t because I freshened up before getting on the train. eventually, after a few stops the train filled up and the only empty seat was the one beside me. for a few hours i stayed within the limits of my personal seat, but then i decided to stretch out for a while and figured she could wake me up if she wanted to come back to the seat. at around 6 am she did just that. she then went into the bathroom to freshen up i guess and came out all spiffied up with her fancy fake pearl matching ring, earrings and bracelet. i really don’t understand why she slept on the floor?!?! she was around 60 years old too. i’m only 32 and i can’t emagine how i would’ve felt in the morning after sleeping there!!! I’ll just think of her as the dog lady from now on because she slept on the floor and after she woke up she spent the rest of the time standing behind my seat with her head out the window. weird. (more…)

it takes me a 2 to 3 hours for each post, so i’ll be back tomorrow (this is a continuation of the previous post)… 

So Dale’s dad met us at the bus station and drove us to many temples around town and showed me the correct form for praying in the temples, i hadn’t realized that there was a specific form, but there is and i was doing it incorrectly the first few times i tried. oh, yeah, we also went to his school and talked to 3 classes of students who were all very giddy and excited to have farangs (westerners) in their school. All of the girls are required to have the same haircuts…bobs. The class clowns made themselves known right away. After the visit and tour of the town we had dinner at a place in the country. We went back to our hotel and rested, i guess, i don’t quite remember because it seems like ages ago. the next day was exciting… Tawi (Dale’s dad) picked us up after breakfast at 8:30 and took us to another temple. across the street from that one was a big hill with steps going all the way up, i’d say that there had to be at least 407 steps to the top and there was another temple up there. i had seen a postcard of the steps with monks walking down and therefore was interested in this particular spot. after we went into the first temple (still at the bottom of the hill) we were headed back into the car so that we could drive to the top of the hill rather than walk, and that’s when i noticed a woman there sitting in a shady area on one of the those grass mats, you know, kind of like the ones you can buy for the beach at home that fold up, but much larger. She was an older woman with rotten teeth and a very big smile. i asked tawi if he would mind interpreting for me and he didn’t mind at all.

ok, so i sat down and she took both of my hands in hers and looked at my palms very closely and intensely. she began by (more…)

sorry i haven’t updated with photos, but like i said, outside of major cities like bangkok, the connection is slow, but i’ll definitely get some up tomorrow night after the fam leaves. i may just hit that floating market on my own too, we’ll see?!

oh yeah, i got a palm reading too and it was really freaky because the lady knew about a mole that i have in a spot where she couldn’t see it. after she said that i believed everything she said…tell you all about it tomorrow night.

A lady sat beside me and as the trip began, I started reading the Thailand Lonely Planet guidebook. I had noticed that a guy across the aisle in a window seat had a phone, but i was also at a window seat and that would mean that i’d have to talk over two other people. I listened to my mp3 player and read for bit. I understood that the trip would be 2.5 hours. I took a little nap about an hour into the ride and woke up about an hour and a half later. When i woke up I started thinking about how I was going to ask to use a phone. i pulled out my handy phrasebook and pointed to “Do you speak English?” and showed it to the lady next to me…”no”.    ok, i waited about ten minutes and started looking in the dictionary section at the end of the book and pointed to the word “telephone” and showed it to her as I pulled money out of my pocket, she got a confused look on her face and slowly began to pull her phone out of her pocket. i then quickly found the word “friend” and pointed to it, then to myself, and said the name of the town where we were headed, “uthai thani”. I pointed to a phone number on a piece of paper and again said the name of the town. She dialed the number and handed me the phone…yay!! it was ringing and dale’s dad answered…bingo!!! I told him that we were on the bus and we had left at 11am from bangkok. he informed me that the bus would take a total of 4 hours, not 2.5, so we still had about an hour to go. I hung up and offered the lady money, but she wouldn’t take it.

to be continued…must catch next bus. we’re now headed to nakhon sawan to catch an overnight train to chaing mai. adios.  

We did a lot of walking, went into some mall that was super fancy with Gucci, Dior, Cartier… Starbucks, and got a coffee. We then went to eat at a place called Cabbages and Condoms. It’s a restaurant that uses all the proceeds to pay for HIV and sex education programs in rural areas as well as other health programs. They have all these mannequins dressed in clothes made out of packets of birth control pills and condoms. It was quite interesting and instead of mints after dinner, we each got a condom.

After the restaurant we went to a night market around 6pm, but it wasn’t anything exciting either. Like I said, i was just going with the flow today. Tomorrow we’re headed to Utaitani to visit Dale’s dad. that should be quite interesting because we’ll get shown around by a local and can ask all of the questions we have about the monks and buddism, and i can also work on my thai language skills. it’s a very, very difficult language! a waiter yesterday taught me an alternative way to ask for the check, something different from what was in the book. today when i used it the waiter asked if i spoke thai and i was quite excited because not only did he understand me the first time, he actually thought that i knew what i was doing for a second

ok, well, it’s off to bed soon. Thanks for posting comments Romina and Kara.

ok, it worked…we’re all good.

So I’m going to back up a little bit… We’re staying at the New  Siam Hotel which is around $17 per night for a/c, private bath, flat screen tv, clean, but we had to get 2 rooms because they didn’t have a triple. It’s okay, the walls are just white and there aren’t any decorations.  Before I go to sleep I watch TVE from Spain because the other options are either in a language I don’t understand or from the states…hey, might as well keep up on my Spanish while I’m here There’s a cheap open air restaurant here and internet service too. I’m in my own room and they are sharing. I wasn’t going to get  A/c, but that room was on the fifth floor and they’re on the 1st and it would’ve been a pain.

The craziest thing happened, but i forgot to mention it last time…The first night we were here stacy’s phone rang at 3:30am with caller ID showing a Massachusetts phone number!!! She didn’t answer it though because it would probably be like $4 per minute.

Ok, back to the first day…we got to the hotel around 2pm and decided to check the place out a little, but had no idea of anything because none of us have read too much before coming here (I know, what were we thinking?!?!?!). We checked out the map and decided to walk to the river and hop on one of the boats that runs up and down as public transportation. They stop at each pier along the way and you can get off at any stop, it’s around $.50  each. Ok, so we found the pier, bought the ticket and (more…)

 So, my mom and I leave Pittsburgh on Sat. morning and Stacy (sister) will meet us in L.A. Brigid is picking us up to entertain during the layover for a few hours and then we’re off to Taiwan for 3 hours and on to Bangkok. Not sure how many hours it is total, but a lot. we arrive Monday morning and then the adventure begins. Too bad mom broke her shoulder 1.5 weeks ago. My friend Dale’s dad is going to show us around his town on Thursday, so that should be interesting. Stay tuned…