#25 - Weetbix and Nutella at long last

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Bangkok 26 Feb - 1 Mar 2008
I’ve decided that Thailand is really two countries; Bangkok and everywhere outside of Bangkok. That is the only way to describe the contrast between rural and urban. They are different worlds, evident in the fact that the next biggest Thai city is Chiang Mai with a couple of hundred thousand citizens. The poor are almost nowhere to be seen, the fashions and technology are cutting edge and I can’t help wonder if, in entering the city, I’ve stepped into a new millennium.
And ohh, how we’ve been well treated by the prices in the rest of SE Asia, where we’ve come to expect great value guesthouses and cheap internet everywhere. And then we got to Bangkok, where the cost of living reminds us of Australia. On our first day it was straight to the supermarket to stock up on Weet-Bix, Nutella and all those things that make it possible to live cheap and comfortable at home.
Despite the extra pressure placed on our budget, we now feel incredibly at ease in this city, having traversed the entire region in the last few months, compared to the overwhelmed, even intimidated feeling we had only six weeks ago after arriving on an overnight bus from Phuket. With our plane tickets to Nepal now in our pockets, we are now able to kick back for a few days in preparation to take on a whole new part of the world.

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