I am sitting at an internet cafe that is part of my new hotel watching the rain pour down outside.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew that this is supposed to be the rainy season, but so far Adam and I have been lucky so this rainstorm is pretty specular.\u00c2\u00a0 Its not like rain in Seattle where the gray skies drop a few drops whenever they feel like it.\u00c2\u00a0 This is more like a fury of wind, rain, and lightning.\u00c2\u00a0 Its exciting!<\/p>\n
On Thursday afternoon after leaving the internet cafe, Adam and I decided to walk to the Golden Mount.\u00c2\u00a0 It is a temple that was built directly into a mountain.\u00c2\u00a0 The climb, while not tiring under Seattle conditions, was painful with the hot humid weather.\u00c2\u00a0 Several people laughed at the sweat pouring off of us by the time we reached the top.\u00c2\u00a0 The temple provided some of the best views of the city and while the height made me a bit queezy, the views were worth it.\u00c2\u00a0 We fended off the tuk tuk and taxi advances and walked back to the hotel.<\/p>\n
Friday – Day 6<\/p>\n
Friday morning, in a fit of idealism, we decided that we could walk the three miles from our hotel to Lumphani Park stopping along the way to visit the thieves market in Chinatown and the train station to book our travel to the islands. \u00c2\u00a0 There were three pitfalls with this idea: 1) The roads 2) The heat and 3) The city.\u00c2\u00a0 Lets start at the end and work our way backwards.\u00c2\u00a0 THE CITY: Bangkok is not laid out on a gird.\u00c2\u00a0 The roads twist and turn whenever they feel like it and even if all you have to do is follow one road to get to your destination, you will more than likely end up at the other end of the city because it is IMPOSSIBLE to follow a road.\u00c2\u00a0 THE HEAT: I know you’ve heard me complain about the heat already, so I’ll keep it brief.\u00c2\u00a0 Adam and I decided that the amount of time walking in Bangkok is much like the amount of money it takes to buy something in Bangkok.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, because of the heat, walking 3 miles in Seattle is equivalent to walking 1 mile in Bangkok.\u00c2\u00a0 So, our 3 mile jaunt in Bangkok is really more like walking a 9 mile marathon in Seattle.\u00c2\u00a0 Not pleasant.\u00c2\u00a0 THE ROADS: As far as I can tell, the roads in Bangkok are much like the roads in Italy.\u00c2\u00a0 Drive fast and hard and lanes are optional.\u00c2\u00a0 Ignore pedestrians.\u00c2\u00a0 If they were stupid enough to walk in front of your car, they deserve to be hit.\u00c2\u00a0 If a traffic light is within view when it changes red, it is fine to run it.\u00c2\u00a0 And finally, motorcycles don’t follow any laws and aim for pedestrians.\u00c2\u00a0 The combination of these three factors made our walk difficult to say the least.\u00c2\u00a0 At one point, I thought I was going to die of heat stroke when out of the abyss there arose a building that strongly resembled Starbucks complete with air conditioning and starbucks prices (really outrageous for Thailand).\u00c2\u00a0 I bought a coffee and sat inside for almost and hour trying to cool off.\u00c2\u00a0 We made it to the Thieves market only to discover that they only sold jewelry, toys, and auto parts – not what we were looking for.\u00c2\u00a0 We did meet an incredible Thai man who stopped and talked to us for 20 minutes on the side of the road as sweat pooled in my shoes.\u00c2\u00a0 He had traveled the world and told us all about his adventures. The Thai people have never ceased to amaze me with their friendliness.\u00c2\u00a0 We walked another half mile to the train station where we were immediately greeted by a woman who asked us where we were going and led us to an air conditioned office.\u00c2\u00a0 The woman inside informed us that because the full moon party is happening next week (a giant party on the island next to ours), all transportation was booked.\u00c2\u00a0 She didn’t give up on us, though.\u00c2\u00a0 She called company after company until she was able to book us on a bus (same price – about $30 each – shorter trip).\u00c2\u00a0 She asked about our travels and gave us tips on things to do in Koh Samui.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to cry at how absolutely wonderful she was.\u00c2\u00a0 We took a taxi back to our hotel and played chess for the rest of the afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 Feeling adventuresome, we made our way back to Khal San road where I got hair extensions – I feel very hippie, but the breeze on my scalp is so so so nice.<\/p>\n
Saturday – Day 7<\/p>\n
We woke up this morning and checked out of our hotel – the noise from the road kept us up most of the night.\u00c2\u00a0 We found a nice place around the corner twice the size for only 100 Baht more (about $3) and its quiet!\u00c2\u00a0 Having learned from our mistake yesterday, we decided to take a tuk tuk to the JJ weekend market rather than walk.\u00c2\u00a0 However, when we approached a tuk tuk driver, he pointed us to the bus stop.\u00c2\u00a0 Being the flexible travelers that we are, we asked\/mined someone what bus to take to get to the market and jumped on the bus she pointed to.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t help compare my experience on the Thai bus with my latest experience on a Seattle bus on the way to the airport.\u00c2\u00a0 In Seattle, the driver grunted when we got on board and as we were leaving, she thrust her arm in front of a man trying to get off.\u00c2\u00a0 “Aren’t you forgetting something?” The poor man looked utterly confused as did everyone waiting behind him to exit.\u00c2\u00a0 The driver continued, “Don’t you want to tell me something?” Again blank stare. She heaved an overly dramatic sigh and finished, “you have to tell me if you want to get your bike off the front of the bus.” He still looked confused but nodded and said that he would be getting his bike.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, when we got on the Thai bus, we obviously didn’t know what we were doing.\u00c2\u00a0 A woman in uniform politely smiled and motioned to a seat.\u00c2\u00a0 We sat.\u00c2\u00a0 She shock her money box and said something in Thai with a smile.\u00c2\u00a0 I handed her a wad of money.\u00c2\u00a0 She handed most of it back and gave me two tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 I thanked her in Thai and she helped me with my pronunciation – in a very friendly way.\u00c2\u00a0 That never would have happened in the states.\u00c2\u00a0 JJ market was enormous.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a maze of stalls selling everything you could imagine from jewelery, handcrafted items, and clothing, to food, painting, and sculptures.\u00c2\u00a0 Some stalls had fans running – we tried to linger next to these as much as possible.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt like I spent a ton of money (1200 Baht) but then I realized it was only about $36.\u00c2\u00a0 I got lots of gifts, clothing, and frozen drinks whenever possible.\u00c2\u00a0 Now to try to fit it all in my suitcase.\u00c2\u00a0 Our bus trip back was not as successful.\u00c2\u00a0 We got off at the wrong stop and had to walk a bit (totally lost) before we found our hotel.<\/p>\n
Its almost dinnertime.\u00c2\u00a0 I think I’m going to brave the rain and find some delicious Thai food.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope everyone is doing well. Send me an e-mail if you want to talk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am sitting at an internet cafe that is part of my new hotel watching the rain pour down outside.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew that this is supposed to be the rainy season, but so far Adam and I have been lucky so this rainstorm is pretty specular.\u00c2\u00a0 Its not like rain in Seattle where the gray […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jabberwock.shadowpuppet.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jabberwock.shadowpuppet.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jabberwock.shadowpuppet.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jabberwock.shadowpuppet.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jabberwock.shadowpuppet.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/jabberwock.shadowpuppet.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jabberwock.shadowpuppet.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jabberwock.shadowpuppet.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jabberwock.shadowpuppet.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}