Back to Bangkok

Things have been going really well here. We've had the last four days free, so Beth and I went back to Bangkok

On our first day there, we did some shopping at this FANTASTIC mall called MBK, which is basically a conglomerate of stands spread over 7 levels, with pretty much every square inch covered. There's even a bowling alley and a movie theatre. After roaming around the sois (alleys) in Bangkok - which are packed-full of stand after stand of the most random stuff you could ever find (shower heads, air con units, cell phone accessories and the most Hello Kitty stuff I have ever seen - this mall seems quite well-spaced. Beth and I got some more clothes for teaching and just had an awesome time looking around. We also walked out the the American embassy (so technically I did return to US soil) in order to get some more passport pages added. They gave us about 20- it'll take me quite some time to fill them up:) It was a great first day back to the city.

On our second day, we pretty much spend the entire day walking through the city. We started off near Khao San road in the north, which is where we're staying. We walked to this temple that is high up on a hill and provides an excellent view of the city and spent some time looking around up there. Then we walked down through Chinatown and got completely lost - a pretty easy thing to do if you don't stick to the main roads. We found this fantastic market that took up a length of about 5 blocks and another one called the "theifs market," where you can find super cheap electronics. After about a three hour jaunt in Chinatown, we were finally able to find the Indian district, where we got some fantastic food - the naan and the chai were mouthwatering. After our short rest, we walked about another four miles to the huge city park in the southern part of the city. We rented a duck paddle boat and paddled around the river...where we saw turtles and IGUANAS (which were huge, by the way). Our day was rounded off by watching a movie at MBK - What Happens In Vegas (we stood for the King's song and everything)! It was a pretty tiring day:)

And yesterday was perhaps even more so. We took a two hour minivan excursion out to the Tiger Temple, which is closer to the border of Myanmar. It is a newer thing to see in Bangkok and is totally worth it. It is a combination temple and tiger sanctuary. During the heat of the day, the tigers pretty much sleep and you can pet the babies...and even the full-grown ones!! I have tons of pictures, but may not be able to post any for a while. It was pretty damn cool, though.

When we got back to Bangkok, we went directly to the Muay THai (Thai bosing) stadium, to watch some fights. These guys are so fricking awesome. I definitely would not want to be on the receiving end of one of those kicks!! We ended up paying less to sit in the third class section..which turned out to be a great idea. You could see the matches just fine and after one of them, they changed the winner and everyone got mad and started throwing trash and water down on all the people in second and third classes!! It was pretty hilarious to see all the rich white people run for cover.

Anyway, I'm leaving today to go back to Ban Phe (we have class tomorrow). I'm looking forward to getting a good night's sleep in some air conditioning!! It's been a busy couple of days:)

I cannot believe ANYONE who doesn't like Bangkok!! It has got to be one of my top five favorite places in the world. Sure it's a little crowded and dirty (though not in comparison to some of the cities I've been in). But, as I've read somewhere in a book: It's the only place where you can get run over by a shop.

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