Quit Dreaming and Go Somewhere

We took the night train to Bangkok last night and arrived at the airport around 5 AM, not looking forward to spending half a day in nasty Bangkok before our flight to Krabi at 5pm. Thank heaven, we got on an earlier flight and didn’t have to spend any time there. Of course the left luggage desk still charged us for leaving our luggage there all of 5 minutes.

Took the flight to Krabi, and wishing we went to Ao Nang instead. Krabi seems like a cruddy little town, just a jump-off point for trips to islands and other places. There aren’t really beaches here. We got a room for 200 baht a night with a fan instead of A/C. We thought it would be ok. We were wrong. It doesn’t help that the only window has a great view of a wall about 6 inches away = no breeze. It’s like an oven. I just pray it cools off tonight.

I went to take a shower and stood in there 5 minutes waiting for hot water, went and got Jim to ask the hotel people how to get hot water, and surprise, there IS not hot water. So I took an ice cold shower. It was not pleasant.

At least the room is clean. What can I expect for $5 a night.

So we are trying to figure out what we want to do now. There are so many islands and so many activities. Ok, gotta go, later gators.

Jim and I realized last night that we need to make our plans for getting out of here. The night train to Bangkok for tonight was full so we got one for tomorrow. Then we got a flight to Krabi, which is in the south of Thailand amongst beach heaven. We’ll be in beaches for a while and no more of this “roughing it” crap. We booked it all through the guesthouse, which is common here. They obviously charge a commission but it is small enough and worth avoiding the hassle. All guesthouses are like travel agencies.

We ate some leftovers from yesterday for breakfast and I feel weird again, like a little dizzy. I don’t know if it is from the food, DEET fumes, maybe not enough protein or something, who knows. I bought vitamins the other day. But since we don’t eat chicken, I haven’t been eating much other meat either. Hm..

Saw that another person died of bird flu. Seriously, there are chickens and roosters everywhere here. If these people are serious about the disease they would take some action and get rid of those damn birds. Jim said we should walk around with blowtorches and take care of them.

Ok, gotta go. Sunday market is today.

Today Jim and I partook in a cooking class through our guesthouse. (All the guesthouses around here organize cooking and trekking). Us and an Australian girl were first driven to a market where our teacher showed us a few things and we even tasted some things, like jackfruit and awesome fried bananas and sticky rice with banana and sweet potato.
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In the past two days, Jim and I did what everyone does in Chiang Mai– go on a trek and take Thai cooking classes. I decided to break this into 2 posts since they will be long.

So. The trek. First we get on a little truck with a guy from Quebec, a Japanese dude, and a Slovakian family. Our guide was a hyper Thai guy named “Boom.” First we stopped at a market to buy lots of water and also flashlights. Not sure why we were supposed to get them but we did.
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Oh man, we found an internet cafe where the pages don’t take a minute to load. This is a FIRST. I am so mad I don’t have Jim’s CD here with the new pics.

Before I forget–Lipton makes a canned Thai iced tea here that is DELICIOUS….Jim is addicted. I swear they should sell it in the states.
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Ok. Today we took our first tuk-tuk (motorized short of bike transportation) to Wat Pho. (In case you forgot, a wat is a Buddhist temple). It was really cool looking. The wats are about the only redeeming quality of Bangkok.

The rest of the city stinks, and I mean IT STINKS! Between the smell of sewer, rotten food on the streets, car pollution, and cat & dog crap, it is disgusting.

I don’t know if I have mentioned, there are stray dogs and cats all over. The only word to describe them is “mangy.” They have raw spots and limps and missing fur some of the time. We saw some really sad ones.

Mangy dogs at some wat (not in Bangkok, I don’t think). There are probably chickens nearby.

Anyway, we are glad to be going to Chiang Mai tonight. We are using the ‘net since there isn’t anything else to do before our train leaves at 7:40pm.

SO, after the wat we walked to a massage school because I was SO ready for a cheap massage and the guidebook said it was a good reputable place. There are massage places everywhere. I had to talk Jim into getting once since he didn’t care.

So we got 1-hour massages for a total of about $16. Wow, huh. Jim’s masseuse was a tiny little Thai guy and that made me laugh since Jim said he would never let a guy massage him since it is “gay.” Mine was a tiny little Thai chick who probably weighed 80 pounds. I notice Jim’s guy has…an extra thumb?? He had a smaller thumb on both hands above his regular thumb!

Jim’s masseuse had twelve fingers!

JIM’S MASSEUSE HAD TWELVE FINGERS!

After the massage I mentioned something to Jim and HE DIDN’T KNOW. How could he not notice this guy rubbing his extra fingers all over his body??? Wow. Anyway, the massage was ok. I didn’t think my lady pushed hard enough, but I could see Jim’s boy really going at it. All in all, it was ok.

Jim got his pictures burned to a CD again so next time I have net I should be able to put more up.

Next time I time you I’ll be in Chiang Mai and out of this hell hole!

Well, another day in Bangkok. There are’t many redeeming qualities about this city, so far…. it is extremely polluted, smells really bad, are tons of mosquitoes, can be really hot and humid, and it is dirty. The good thing: DIRT CHEAP. Every day we are amazed and delighted by the cheapness. Yesterday we took a tour at Ayuthaya, the old capital of Thailand about 2 hours away, and it cost 450 baht apiece, about $11 dollars for a whole day.

[Days Later Note: I realized that I didn’t say anything about how the trip went. We saw lots of really interesting wats in Ayuthaya, enough to satisfy us for a long time. There was a huge reclining Buddha and we got lots of great pictures… here are two.]

Ayuthaya…there were so many ruins like this… very interesting and beautiful. The guide kept mentioning the Burmese Army and how they came over and cut the heads off the statues and even stole gold from Thailand then built a temple with Thai gold in Burma!

Picture: It’s not hard to get great photos because the ruins were so awesome.

…..

We just ate breakfast and later tonight we are taking a night train to Chiang Mai, way up north. We don’t even know what we’ll do today, maybe go to Chinatown. It seems strange to us that there is a Chinatown here… [Days Later Note: We saw “Along Came Polly.” It was a lot funnier than I thought it would be.]

Maybe I will get a massage today, they are like 80 baht for a half hour. But this girl on our tour yesterday had bruises on her arms because they did it so hard. Yikes.

Jim rebelled against the shower gel I brought and he went and bought a bar of soap. the only plastic soap container they had was a Hello Kitty one, with a little cartoon bunny on the front that says “Pretty Mindy.” Oh, it was great when he came back from the store with that, ha ha. So now when we refer to soap, it’s Pretty Mindy. Well, I’ve got 4 mins left. Sorry I don’t have more exciting news.

Yesterday we just walked around the street we are staying on, Khoa San. It is OVERRUN with tourists. It’s crazy. There are at least four 7-11s on the short little street. But in a way it is kind of nice.. better than staying on a street with a bunch of skyscrapers or something. There are food vendors everywhere. We had a big bottle of freshly squeezed OJ for 10 baht, which is like 20 cents. Then a half fresh pineapple cut up for 20 baht. Then a thin pancake with bananas and chocolate for 30 baht. YUM!

This is Khoa San Road. “Nana Inn” on the left is where we stayed.

Today we went to the weekend market and I got some simple fishermans pants for about 3 bucks. We signed up for a day tour tomorrow to Ayuthaya, the old capital with lots of wats, or temples. Jim and I have no idea what we want to do next, how we want to get to Chiang Mai–fly or bus up there making stops on the way.

The air here is SO polluted and so gross. We took a public bus today (did you know Bangkok has no subway) and I was just about choking on the fumes from outside. The good news was that the weather was awesome today. Yeah, it rained and was cloudy, but it wasn’t hot at all!!! It feels weird to not be covered with sweat.

Well, time’s almost up. See you later!

Last night Jim went to the Body Works exhibit and I stayed at the hostel to read up on Bangkok, since I haven’t read a page of the guidebook yet and it was freaking me out. After he left I fell asleep on the book and didn’t wake up until he was pounding on the door, 2 hours later.
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Today we went to the Singapore Zoo, and it was awesome. I liked it better than the Bronx Zoo. It was smaller, but the animals were RIGHT there, peacocks and roosters walking on the sidewalks…monkeys jumping around so close you could reach out and touch them. They used natural boundaries most of the time (like moat type things), instead of glass walls and chain fences and cages. And there was hardly anyone else there, so that made it even better. I absolutely loved it. Jim got some great pics that I can’t wait to put up, including us feeding an elephant.

By the elephant, a worker held up a basket of fruit to me, and I was like, “No, I don’t want any fruit. No thanks.” And I was really confused of why he was offering me fruit in the zoo. Then I finally realized he was offering it to me to feed the elephant. DUH.

Jim chillin’ with a ring-tailed lemur

Me with Monkeys

Later we plan to go to this exhibit called BODY WORLDS. This guy, Prof. Gunther von Hagens, used REAL human cadavers to make an …uh.. exhibit. Jim wants to go and I guess it would be interesting for sure. (note: Jim ended up going and I didn’t)

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we fly to Bangkok. I am not ready; I haven’t read a thing in the guidebook yet!! All I know is that it won’t be as awesomely efficient, clean, and organized as Singapore. And it is slightly hotter, unfortunately. Yeah, it’s incredibly humid here. But the locals wear pants and even long sleeve shirts. It’s amazing that they are used to it. It’s VERY HOT.

We ate Indian food yesterday and it was SOO spicy but delicious… and no tummy pain! by the way, ice cream cones at McDonalds are 25 cents, so about 14 cents US!

My ‘net time is up. Remind me to tell you about the little guy who talked to us the other day by the pay phone.

NOTE ADDED MONTHS LATER (Aug 13): I was looking thru pics of the zoo, and I remembered something I didn’t post. It was about the Coolest Monkey Ever. At the chimp area (I think) there was one industrious monkey who found a piece of rope hanging off their jungle gym-type thing. He grabbed the rope and then swung around on it. I think he also twisted it, so when he swung, it spun him around. It was the funniest thing ever!! THEN, he twisted the rope so it was taut, put the rope in his mouth, and let it spin him in circles like that! Ha!
Ok, nevermind. I could never explain it as funny and cute as it was.