Bangkok center city

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Hello from Bangkok!
As promised to many of you, I am going to try to keep some sort of travel log while traveling in Thailand and Cambodia =) While this one might be a little longer, I intend the following ones to be shorter … although one never knows with me, especially if I end up writing like I speak…which you all know is a lot =)
Well, the flight was 23 hours of flying time and, well, many more of travel time - I actually still don’t know what day of the week it is since Bangkok is 12 or 11 hours ahead and I have lost track of how many hours of layover there have been between DC, LA, and Tokyo….while approaching Japan we flew over the “international date line” - which I had never heard of - and within minutes moved 9 hours forward in time - kind of like time travel really= )
Be it that this is my first time in Asia, I have to say that it did not take long for me to realize that I truly was no longer in the Western world… the first sign was during the layover in Tokyo - the flight was delayed and the airline offered to buy all of the passengers a quick lunch - instead of sandwiches or burgers however, they produced wooden boxes with some kind of noodle soup with fish and rice which half of the American waiting looked at in confusion and stupor. That must have been the look on my face too, but I did eat it -it was actually quite good.
Today is my first day in Bangkok, and although relatively uneventful compared to what I expect the rest of my month here will be, it has nonetheless been full of surprises. The rumors about how inexpensive it is are true. Breakfast, somewhere that could not have screamed ‘tourist trap’ louder, was still only $4, and buying a cell phone (which I felt I should have for security reasons) was $50, including minutes! I walked around the World Trade Center area, a few blocks from where I am staying, and pretty much in the center of the city, and the panorama could not have been more different from what I expected. The streets are surrounded by modern buildings which sport huge flashing sings everywhere, but most of the shopping seems to happen outside of such buildings amongst little run-down carts that pave the streets and sell anything from fish, shoes and electronics! Needless to say that I have already acquired 5 pairs of shoes - really, 5 -and I am not telling you my total b/c the ladies amongst you will die of jealousy...let’s just say it was no way near the three digit mark … Hopefully I will not have any more time to shop b/c this place could be TROUBLE.
On the way back from my long walk I opted to ride in some-sort of motor-taxi, a hybrid between a motorcycle and cart really, which charged me 50 bahts to drive me home. This was only achieved after a good 10 minutes of intense negotiation, mostly done through sign language and a lot of hard work on my part, and which I now realize was over less than 50 cents - duh! - Howver, the ride made me realize that Bangkok does indeed have some serious pollution problem. While it was less than five minutes it was long enough to leave my body covered in a thin layer of black, smoky, dust. In fact it is common to see bike drivers, and even pedestrian, walk around with face masks which I assume are to protect them from the high levels of smog in the city…
I am now on my way to a one hour Thai massage - which I feel I have earned after 6 months of misery writing my thesis, twenty-something hours of travel, and well, 6 hours of shopping! Like everything else by the way, the massages are ridiculously inexpensive but I am still in shock over it =)
That is all for today - keep checking for updates and if I do end up buying a digital camera, I promise to post pics too!

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