Natural Ville Bangkok

... law requires him to turn on the meter, which results in about half the amount of the proposed flat fare) - annoying or amusing, up to you...with a smile, the meter come on and he takes off, with 100+ km/h down deserted highways or city streets, no problem...

... for a short trip, I skip the taxi and go for the motorcycle taxi... I barely sit on the back of the small motorcycle, when the driver takes of for his neckbraking ride through oncoming ...

Awakening at an exhausting 8am we went and checked out of "My guesthouse"and got a taxi to the bus station. It took pretty damn ong, we saw the skyscrapers of Bangkok and whilst on the highway could get a more clearer perspective on the actual size of Bangkok, one pretty huge city. We arrived a the bus station, purchased our tickets and jumped on the bus to the border. Quite a comfortable ride, air con and comfy sids, not bad for public transport. Goodbye ...

... je trouve ça plus agréable que de se retrouver avec 4 anglais dans un restaurant mexicain (Véridique! J'étais invité mais j'ai prétexté un mal de tête).

Je me suis rapidement enfui vers le nord et la ville de Chiang Mai, au milieu des collines verdoyantes et des rizières. Le climat y est effectivement plus clément, l'atmosphère plus relaxante et les gens sincèrement adorables. J'ai fait le voyage en train, ce qui m'a permis accessoirement de r ...

... to do for a while at a nearby tattoo parlor so she did well there too. We walked around a bunch and stopped off at a few vendors and restaurants really just taking it all in. After a while though we were exhausted so we decided to head back home.

Now you would think that the next day we would just kind of lay low, but nope, not this pair. We are gluttons for punishment I guess because on Sunday we decided to check out Chinatown on the eastern side of Bangkok. We took the BTS ...

... seafood is fresh as
you can see some of the staff catching the fish during the day.
The accomodation is not too bad, although there is no hot water, the rooms
are clean and have aircon.
All in all it was a nice place, despite the rubbish on one side of the
Island, Mun Nork Island is a beautiful place, the beaches have to be up there
Bangkok, Krung Thep, Thailand thai-discovery

Last night I went to my favorite supermarket to buy some milk. For some reason, identical containers of milk of the same brand showed two different prices. Being a rational consumer, I picked the one with the lower price. When I got to the cashier, the checkout girl ran the milk across the bar code scanner and yep, you guessed it, the higher of the two prices was the one that showed up on the register - even though there was a lower ...

... amp; Leisure Store
Software Store
Toys & Games Store
VHS Store
Watches Store

... to our hostel which turned out to be along the most polluted river I have ever seen (it smelled of sewage) but the place seemed to remind me a lot of Spider House Cafe in Austin with its strange concoction of knick-knacks and shrines all over the place. Anyway, as we waited for our room to be opened by one of the hostel workers a humungous lizard (I kid you not, about a meter in length from head to end of tail) appeared and began to flip out by our ...

... and air conditioning! The rock hard beds were an acceptable sacrifice for an escape from the heat.

We left the hostel Tuesday morning with no agenda besides a tenative plan of heading to Lumphini Park. However, on our way to the water taxi, we met two Thai women who were very helpful and very nice (and didn't even ask for a tip!). They informed us that today was a Buddhist holiday and all temples were free of charge. Additionally, all Tuk-Tuks would ...

... for her. We had pasta at a cafe downtown and pointed out the ubiquitous 7-11s. We gave her a few hours to decompress from her journey before trying to impress her with the journey that lay ahead.

Jeremy, my sister-in-law's son, was already in Thailand. I had helped him get an internship at a 5-star hotel in Bangkok, and he arrived a week before we did. He had also never been out of Texas, but he had been navigating ...