Oh My God, What Is That Thing?

I have a warning to pass along and you should take heed of it. Thailand is an amazing country with warm and friendly people, beautiful scenery and delicious food. But it’s not without its dangers and I knew that before I started. I expected questionable hygiene, new illnesses, maybe even a political protest or two. So far I’ve been right about the hygiene, I’ve only experienced the same sicknesses I get at home, and I don’t live in a political hotbed so things have been peaceful. I also knew there would be some surprises, things I couldn’t predict until they actually happened. And that’s certainly been true.

But I never expected what happened this weekend.

Let me set the scene. Our destination this weekend was Kanchanaburi, which I loved while I was there (briefly) during orientation. I rode elephants and swam in the River Kwai and had a great time, but there’s so much more to do there and I knew this would become a favorite place for me. So we left very early Saturday and made our way to the Wild West of Thailand.

Leg room was minimal (and I’m not exactly a giant) and we had to dodge the ever-persistent taxi drivers who were trying to convince us that we didn’t really want buses to Kanchanaburi, we wanted taxis to Ayutthaya or Bangkok.

(“You want taxi? Where you go?”
“To Kanchanaburi, on a bus.”
“Taxi to Ayutthaya, only 1000 baht.”
“That’s great, but I’m not going to Ayutthaya. Also, I want a bus. Notice how we are having this conversation at a bus station.”)

But still, the trip went quickly. And then there were waterfalls. Kanchanaburi has a lot and we only saw a small selection, but they were so pretty. I also love that it’s the low season now and there aren’t tourists everywhere. Out last stop was Sai Yok National Park (a kind park ranger gave us a lift in the back of his truck and saved us a 30 minute walk) and it was practically deserted. Which meant that the floating bungalows on the Kwai River, in view of another waterfall, were almost all empty and waiting to be rented.

That’s right, I slept on an adorable floating bungalow on the river. With a waterfall as my backyard. We took advantage by jumping off our floating porches and swimming to said waterfall. Which we then climbed and jumped off until the only things holding us up were the lifejackets the bungalow owner thoughtfully provided. So we made our way back and, after we showered off the river, had dinner boated over to us. But you have to have somewhere to eat dinner, so they also towed over a barge, complete with roof and tables. I was pretty impressed. No one’s ever given me a dining room before.

And then it happened.

I was lazing around in my bungalow, enjoying my post-dinner-on-a-barge afterglow and staring at the ceiling. And after a bit, something caught my attention. I stared for a minute, but my brain didn’t want to process what I was seeing, so when Jenny came into the room, I pointed it out. And I didn’t like what she had to say.

“It’s a spider.”

But surely that can’t be, I thought. Because that thing on the ceiling is bigger than my hand. And it’s brown and white. Spiders aren’t white. And so when Katie Poor came in, we consulted her. To my relief, she reassured us that it wasn’t a spider, it was a sprinkler. And it did look like a sprinkler. Unfortunately, Jenny (who is too smart for her own good) pointed out that the bungalows didn’t have flush toilets. Why would they have sprinklers? And then, as if to answer, the sprinkler scurried across the ceiling. The three of us, being mature adults who have braved traveling across the world to live in a developing country, ran out of the room screaming. We screamed so loud that we woke up a Thai family a few bungalows down and brought the owner over at a jog. When he saw the mutant spider, he chuckled and told us not to worry, it was only a little spider and it didn’t bite. Which implied that there were bigger spiders around that did bite. The only part of the exchange that was reassuring was that he killed it for us.

You might think that I felt ridiculous making such a scene over a spider. But you would be wrong. Because I can deal with small, normal spiders. But I cannot deal with Godzilla-spiders that are brown and white because the white is actually the egg sack they’re carrying around. You may take a moment to freak out.

So here is my warning: Kanchanaburi is breeding a master race of super-bugs. They’re in the development phase of the plan now, but if we prepare we might stand a chance when they’re ready to destroy the world. And sadly, we have to defend against more than one species. As a found out a little later, it’s not just the spiders that are big in Kanchanaburi.

Brittany, Katie P. and I were playing cards (Jenny, probably sensing that something upsetting was about to happen) had gone to the other room to sleep. Suddenly Katie P., who had been lying down next to the open window, shot to her knees, put her hand behind her back and screamed. At this point, I was confused, but then Brittany screamed and I thought, maybe the spider came back from the dead. So just to cover all my bases, I screamed too. This is the point where I felt a little ridiculous, because the owner heard us again and came back. Brittany and Katie P. said “Mai pen rai, it’s a cricket, we can handle it.” And I looked at them. A cricket? Really? But then I saw the cricket.

Hold out your index finger. If you have small hands, hold out your middle finger. Triple the width, add wings and six legs and you have the size of the cricket. We spent the next twenty minutes trying to herd the monster cricket in the direction of the door, using whatever resources were at our disposal; including but not limited to: throwing shoes, throwing water bottles, swinging a lifejacket from the strap in an attempt to nudge it out, and blowing it with a fan.

Katie P: I’ve got it! We’ll use the fan and the air will bother it.” (Unplugs fan and maneuvers it into the prime cricket blowing angle. Nothing happens. Katie moves it closer. Cricket is unflappable.)
Me: It’s not moving.
Katie P: I bet it’s loving this. It’s probably thinking “It was hot in here before and I was going to leave, but now that I have this refreshing breeze I think I’ll stay a while”.
Me: We could try the lifejacket again.

Finally we (meaning Katie P.) sucked it up, grabbed the shoe it was sitting on, tossed it out, and slammed the door. Eventually the cricket hopped away and we knew victory.

So parts of the weekend were frightening and stressful, but I would absolutely do it again because the next morning I woke up and outside my door was a waterfall. A much nicer way to start the day than roosters or construction.

The Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Joys of Thailand

This last weekend was our second planned trip to Ayutthaya and this time we actually followed through. It's one of the closest places to us (only about 45 minutes by car, sometimes 2 hours by bus) so we decided to make it a day trip. If we didn't do everything we wanted to, we could always come back. And maybe we will. It's a really pretty place that oddly, has a bit of beach-town feel to it. And the ruins are definitely cooler than I thought they'd be. But really, once you see a few crumbled monuments and temples, you've seen them all. The best and cheapest way to see the ruins (Ayutthaya is filled with them) is by bike. So we rented bikes for the day (for the staggering price of 40 baht) and pedaled our way to some history. Now, some of you may be recalling that I have something of an irrational dislike, possibly even a fear, of bikes. And this is true. But a lot of things that normally bother me haven't been an issue while I've been here. Bikes, bugs, a lack of food and health codes. I wouldn't survive here if those things continued to freak me out. I'm probably saving it all up for when I get home and I'll have a massive meltdown the first time I see a bee.

Now that I've been in Thailand for a month and a half, and teaching for almost that long, I feel more settled. And I've been paying more attention to the little things that make this whole experience so interesting. They are the difference between visiting a country and living it.

The sounds:

There is at least one rooster that lives somewhere close to my building. Roosters are loud. They are loud at sunrise and sunset. And these particular roosters are especially loud because some of the locals have cockfights at 6:30 in the morning, we discovered not too long ago. I have an excellent view from my balcony, when I want to watch. Which is never because...cockfights.

Shots/fireworks/cannonfire: It's a series of booming sounds that could be either one of these. We think it's coming from the nearby temple. I've heard two explanations. One, that this is part of the Thai funeral service. They happen a little too regularly for this to be true and it also came from a farang, so I'm thinking it's unlikely. The second option, which came from a local, is that it's the call for the monks at the temple to come to the meal. This seems like an unnecessarily extreme version of a dinner bell, but I suppose it's possible. Although, for all I know, there's a turf war going on between the street vendors.

The smells: The most pungent smell I've been exposed to lately has been the particularly identifiable smell of durian. Durian is a fruit and it's banned from most airports, subways, and enclosed public places. I've even seen a "no durian" sign in a restaurant. Why someone would feel the need to bring their own fruit to a restaurant, I don't know, but I can understand not wanting it anywhere near your business, food, or person. Durian is rank. A teacher at school brought it in yesterday as a gift for me and I couldn't fake liking it even for a second. I'm impressed that I swallowed the teeny tiny bite that I took. It tastes like it smells. Now that I've had it, I can think back to the fruit stalls I've passed and realize that was the weird smell I could never identify. I am now on the look out for a "no durian" sign that I can hang around my neck.

The joys: This particular joy has become a weekly event. Every Tuesday, I teach one of my lower level matayum 1 classes (12 year olds), which I've taken to calling my lady boy class, because it has at least 4 lady boys. For those of you who haven't been introduced to this aspect of gender and sexuality in Thai culture, "lady boy" is the general term for a flamboyant gay man. It may even be for all gay men, but don't quote me on it. Some lady boys go the whole nine yards and get the sex change, but most are simply flamboyant. And Thai people are completely cool with this. It's a non-issue, which is refreshing and also unexpected (at least for me) in a culture that can be so conservative. But Thais are also the friendliest and most open people I've ever met, so maybe it's not so surprising.

There is at least one lady boy in most of my classes and I love them. So many of my students are shy and getting them to speak is a painful experience for everyone. And, while this isn't true across the board, a lot of the students who aren't shy have an attitude problem. But my lady boys are neither. They have personality, they participate, they have fun in class without causing problems. We enjoy each other. But the lady boys in my Tuesday class are my favorite. First, because they are adorable. They are tiny Thai boys with sweet smiles and I just want to hug them. But the biggest reason I love them is that every Tuesday they come to my office to fetch me for class. They always come early and say "Teacher, go room now." And I say, "Five minutes" because usually I'm in the middle of an important game of solitaire. They get excited and wait outside and when I leave the office they take everything I'm holding (even if, like today, it's only two pieces of paper) and carry it to class for me. I have trouble getting some of my classes to roll in less than 15 mintues late, and these boys come early to get me. And when I draw pictures on the board and the whole class laughs? They clap and say "Teacher, beautiful." They're great for my self-esteem. I should start taking them with me to all my classes.

That was...random

Before I get started on the interesting little cultural things I experience daily, I want to mention two school happenings that might give you a little peak into how things work in Thai schools. First being that I was introduced to the entire student body last week. "Why Katie," you might say, "haven't you been teaching there for a month?" And you would be correct. So why did they wait this long to introduce me? Because they are Thai. And this is Thailand. Much of the time, things don't follow any schedule or occur in any order that we would consider logical. Things just happen, or don't happen, at any time. And even if the whole introduction was a little pointless (I'm the only white person at school. I'm pretty sure they all know who I am), it was still a nice gesture.

The second event was yesterday and it was my first school celebration. My most lasting impression was that it was a nice-smelling one. It was Wai Kru, which more or less translates into "Respect Teacher Day" ("Kru" is teacher, but in university and secondary school it's "Ajarn". I'm Ajarn Katie." Different schools celebrate it in slightly different ways (some cancel class, mine only canceled a few classes). But I think they all have the same unbelievably complex flower arrangements which the students make and then present to us on their knees. And then they walk away on their knees. It was all very submissive and awkward, but only for me, because of course this is normal for the Thai teachers. After all, they were once knee-walkers themselves. If the person is very well-respected (monk, grandmother, a member of a pop group) they could very well still be knee-walkers. The flowers really were amazing, though. It's hard to describe them, but I took a lot of picture. I may even post them fairly soon.

And now the random section of this post. Because random is an accurate way to describe my time here so far. Here is a sampling of the things you rarely go a day without experiencing in Thailand:

Stray dogs - Individually, in pairs, many times in packs. They are everywhere. You know how we have rabbits (or some of us do)? Thailand has dogs. At night it can be a little unsettling, especially in Bangkok where they usually roam in packs and watch you as you pass. But I got used to it, faster than I thought I would since I'm not at my most comfortable with animals. I've seen dogs chase other dogs off their doggie turf, dogs nursing injuries, dogs following people for scraps. I never thought about it before, but probably 95% of dogs at home are neutered and I've never appreciated Bob Barker more than I do now.

Motorbikes - I don't want to call them motorcycles, because they're not like the big ones you usually see at home. These are less powerful and smaller. And yet, they still fit families of four or five of them. I see this every single day and I still haven't managed to get a picture of it. And I have to, because this sight needs to be shared. A common formation is an adult driving, with a child behind, and another adult at the back holding a toddler. Sometimes one of them is also holding a chicken. And I always wonder, how? How do they fit on there? And doesn't it ever occur to them that it might be unsafe? The adults wear helmets. I think the fact that they don't make toddler motorbike helmets should be a hint. Seriously, a picture of this is one of my main goals.

Delicious smelling meat of questionable origin - 90% of the time it's either chicken or pork (beef being a rare sighting in Thailand) but you can rarely tell which it is. Even when you're eating it. Actually, especially when you're eating it. I've eaten tasty chicken dishes and had someone say "that pork was good today, wasn't it?"

Storm clouds - The rainy season is starting up and it's pretty impossible to ignore. It will be beautiful all morning and then by early afternoon the sky will start turning black. But that doesn't always mean it will rain. Usually it doesn't, and when it does, the wind will blow so hard it sounds like someone screaming (once, I actually thought one of the students was screaming and wondered why no one was bothered by it) and the rain will pound down. For ten minutes. A little bit later, it'll be blue skies again.

Skinny cows - I don't see this everyday, but I usually pass them on the way to school. Because Thai people don't eat much beef, they raise cows solely for milk. As a result, they aren't as invested in keeping their cows fat. And I get that. But you can count their ribs. I'd have thought they'd keep them a little more well fed. Not so surprisingly, the beef they do have here tastes like it came from a skinny cow.

K-Pop - I've heard rumors that Thailand has music of its own, both traditional and contemporary. But I'm not sure I've actually experienced it myself, since apparently Korean pop music (K-pop) is the hot thing to listen to here. I listen to it everyday in the van. I hear students singing it. K-pop is a mix of English and Korean, so when I say certain words, the students recognize them from songs and start to sing. For some of them, this is their only knowledge of English. As for me, I using it to become the cool teacher. I mentioned my growing love of SuperJunior (a boy band with thirteen members) to my fourteen year-olds and after the squealing died down, I think they liked me a lot more. So I need to put some serious work into learning the life stories of K-pop singers.

Things in Thailand that are a little more specific to me:

"Farang" - It means Westerner, basically. Usually a white Westerner. It's not derogatory. It's kind of a name you would give to a stupid, but well-meaning, pet. As in "What's that farang doing now? I love her, but she doesn't know anything." The students at school say it all the time, even though you think they'd be used to me by now. The women in my office say it a lot, too. In front of me. Which...I know I can be pretty clueless here (and, maybe, also at home) and I don't speak Thai, but I'm not actually stupid. But they don't mean anything by it, so I just ignore it. We all know that I know that they talk about me when I'm right there. "Farang" also means guava. So when I eat guava (not often, since I violently dislike it) everyone gets a big kick out of it. I am a big source of entertainment.

Construction - I've mentioned the construction before and there's not much more to say, other than we've heard it will eventually be a pool. And also that Americans would have finished it a lot faster, without working on Saturdays and Sundays. I wonder if there's even a Thai word for "efficiency". I do actually wonder about it. It's pretty much the antithesis to a major part of Thai culture.

Food on my desk or pushed into my hands - Thais are big on hospitality and taking care of people, at times to an uncomfortable degree. So the teachers in the language department are always putting food on my desk, usually fruit. The fruit is almost always amazing (guava aside) but I can only eat so much. And they also bring me other things, like hot soymilk with the soybeans still floating in it, odd sandwiches (cheese, mayonnaise, cucumber, and not completely ripe tomatoes), and Thai desserts. Unfortunately, almost every single dessert I've tried is gross. A lot of them involve shaved ice with toppings that include kidney beans, sweet potato chunks, and a variety of gelatinous cubes. Gelatinous is actually the best word to describe Thai desserts, which says a lot on its own. Mango and sticky rice is still a win, though.

If I could, I would eat cheese for every meal

After the fantastic but not overly restful weekend in Bangkok, we decided to spend last weekend enjoying the wonders that Suphanburi has to offer. Namely, the pool, Thai massages (I paid 6 dollars to get beat up for an hour and a half, but in the good way), pizza, and marathon movie watching. I felt so refreshed that the week zoomed by, and before I knew it the next weekend trip was in the works.

The original plan was to head to Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand. It has a lot of history and very ancient ruins, and it's only about an hour away. A perfect day trip, with time left over to do nothing on Sunday. We all know how highly I value doing nothing. But on Friday I got a call from Brittany, who asked if I minded a change in plans. What followed was a very confusing conversation, partly because I couldn't hear over the noisy students heading home, but mostly because I had been fixing my hair using the reflection from a van window, only to realize that behind that reflection there was a small Thai student staring back on me. Flustered, I only really managed to make out "beach" and "Bangkok". I like both of those things, so I said yes to whatever was being planned.

When I got home, I found out that the full plan was to go to Hua Hin for the weekend, a beach town south-east of Bangkok. So we all packed quickly and headed for Bangkok, where we stayed the night, and then left very very early on Saturday. I have to admit, I wasn't completely on board with waking up at 5 in the morning and being on a bus before 7, but I'm so glad we did. It took a little over 3 hours to get there by bus, but when we got there we still had a whole day. We also got dropped off right in front of a Starbucks, an auspicious start.

We then found out guesthouse, which may have been my favorite part of the whole weekend. It used to be an old teakwood fisherman's house, and the whole place was beautiful. The common areas were all open-air on the ground floor and the rooms were raised up over them. There were antique sinks and carvings and now I think I want to have a guesthouse just like this one. I'll put it next to my used bookstore.

Our first stop was lunch, but after that we immediately went for the beach. Because it's the beginning of the low season and the weather is getting a little unreliable (it still managed to stay beach-suitable while we were there), the beach wasn't very crowded. And only about half of the people there were tourists. The other half tried to sell us everything from fruit and bathing suits, to horseback rides and men's dress shirts. And the whiter you are, the more you get hounded.

So, in a effort to stave off the hounds, we employed the brilliant strategy of falling asleep on the beach, recovering from the early start. And, of course, we all got sunburned. Because if I still haven't achieved a sunburnless summer at home, I doubt I'll start in Thailand.

We spent the rest of the weekend eating bread and cheese. There were some vegetables and dessert thrown in there, but bread and cheese was the focus. I haven't had cheese in over a month. Even the Mexican food barely had any. I didn't realize how big a part of my diet cheese is until I suddenly stopped eating it. Thailand needs to jump on the cheese train.

A good part of Sunday was spent traveling, but the guesthouse and beach and cheese made it completely worthwhile. I had sufficient time to chill out before school today. And then during school today, I spent a lot of time explaining sunburns, both as a general concept and mine in particular. Thai people love white skin. The whiter you are, the more beautiful. You could look like a toad, but as long as your skin is white, they think you're a model. As a result, they spend as much money and effort lightening their skin as Americans do tanning it. Umbrellas block a lot of the sun, but there's still that pesky Asian skin tone to contend with. To solve that problem, they have whitening cream. Some of it is makeup. Some of it is actually bleaching cream. It sounds terrible to me, but I suppose it's not any worse than voluntarily sitting under lights than can give you cancer.

So they find it baffling that I might lay out on the beach, where my skin is in danger of growing darker. Well, some people get darker. I get frecklier. And, on days like Saturday, I get redder. When I explained that I didn't wear enough sunscreen because I fell asleep and got burned, they only seemed more confused. I'm sure Thai people get sunburns, but they're probably not as visible as mine. A student offered to let me use whitening cream that she had conveniently in her bag. I thought about explaining that bleach was probably the last thing I needed right then, but decided it would be best not to get into it. I just have to accept that Thais and Westerners do very different, but equally damaging, things to their skin in the name of beauty.

Although, in my defense, my sunburn didn't occur in the name of beauty, but in the name of sleep deprivation.

Bangkok, you're too expensive. Except not really.

I really need to start posting a little more often, because I've starting to have trouble keeping track of what I did when. I haven't been here all that long, but there's so much going on that it always feels like I've done a lot, even when it's in the middle of the week and all I've accomplished is that I didn't make the students dumber.

But the weekend before last I decided to do a little more than that and went to Bangkok. It's only about an hour and a half away (traffic permitting) by air-conditioned van and it costs 100 baht. So going to Bangkok is pretty easy. I left right after school on Friday, with the other four English teachers on my floor, and since two of them have been to Bangkok a lot, we had a much better chance of not getting lost. Sadly, the odds were still high that we'd get hit by a motorbike. It didn't happen, but I'm thinking it's pretty inevitable.

We stayed at a hostel just off Khao San Road, which is a popular backpacking hot spot. So popular that it's practically it's own little village and the variety of people was a refreshing change. Once we had washed away the van smell and changed, we went out for dinner. And here's another big change from my usual routine, we ate at a restaurant. I know, I was shocked too. It was more expensive than I'm used to, but expensive in Thailand is relative and I really only spent about 10 bucks. And, oh, was it worth it. They served us pineapple fried rice in an actual pineapple and the red curry we ate is a contender for the "Best Food I've Had in Thailand" prize.

After dinner, we walked around a lot. Suphanburi is busy during the day, but at night things quiet down really fast. Not so in Bangkok. It might actually be more crowded. There are definitely just as many people as there are in the day, and with the sun down and the temperature a little more comfortable I decided that Bangkok at night is one of my favorite places to be.

Saturday was our day to be comforted by Western culture. Thailand is great and the food is even better, but sometimes I just want to eat a burger and do it in a place where I don't have to say hello every five seconds to giggly passers-by. So our first stop was, of course, Starbucks. Now, I'm not the Starbucks fan that I once was (coffee = burnt, prices = a weeks worth of meals in Thailand) but I appreciate the convenience of having them everywhere. Including, it turns out, in Thailand. I've also been struggling with a caffeine situation while I've been here. Before I left, I'd been told and read myself that Thai people love coffee. So I thought, great, that won't be something I need to give up. Especially great since I put coffee in the big part of the food pyramid.

What I wasn't told, is that Thai people love instant coffee. Particularly Nescafe. I don't know if any of you have experience the particular flavor of Nescafe, but if you haven't, I envy you. Instant is not coffee. It's dirt with caffeine and I can't make myself drink it. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard, although there have been days when I look at the individually wrapped packets of poison and think, "maybe". But that doesn't mean that I didn't just about cry from happiness when I had my first sip. It was an emotional experience.

After we all finished our cups of heaven (and composed ourselves so we wouldn't scare the locals) it was off to Chatuchak Weekend Market. It's an open-air market, the largest in Thailand and might actually be the largest in the world, although I'm not committing to that last part. We only went to a tiny fraction of the market, but the variety of things to buy in that fraction were overwhelming. Furniture, clothes, silks and fabrics, jewelery, books, carvings, junky tourist knick-knacks, it went on. And I may have gone a little crazy. Once you start buying, it's hard to stop. Things are so cheap here, although you should never commit to the first price. I am by no means an expert bargainer, but I managed to get a few things knocked down. I probably saved a grand total of 4 dollars, but it's the principle. And the vendors seemed to get a kick out of the fact that I was even trying.

After lunch we visited a friend of Brittany's, one of the other teachers, who lives nearby, and from there we slowly made our way back to the hostel to rest. Shopping is exhausting and we had to prepare ourselves for the most exciting part of the weekend; the part that, for a couple of us, was the main reason for going to Bangkok. I am speaking, naturally, about Mexican food.

Thailand, even Suphanburi, offers a lot more Western food than I was expecting. I can easily by peanut butter, junk food, cheese if I don't care about the quality. If I feel going a bit far from my apartment, I can get a burger (I haven't yet, I'm saving that for desperate times). But Mexican food? No way. The only possible place for that is Bangkok and you have to really look for it.

Luckily we had old pros to show us the way. It was the most expensive dinner by far that I've had in Thailand but I couldn't bring myself to care at all. Over a week later and I'm still sad that I couldn't eat all my food. I'd go into further detail but I'd rather not think about it. My cravings will only go unfulfilled.

On Sunday, we did what you should do on Sundays, which is not much at all. We checked out of the hostel and headed for a second-hand bookstore a fellow farang had mentioned to us. And when we went inside, I was reminded that one of my dreams is to own a bookstore and hey, I want it to look exactly like this one. We spent a good couple of hours there, soaked in that feeling you can only get by being surrounded on all sides by books, and finally made ourselves leave. But not without buying a couple, which we can sell back to them for half-price when we're finished. And considering the price of these books, and the library fines I inevitably rack up at home, this bookstore has pretty much become my local library.

Then it was time to go home, but we made a quick stop at Siam Paragon, a mega-mall that contains the most beautiful food court I've ever seen. A food court that contains sandwiches, which are almost as hard to find as Mexican food. Bellies full with familiar food, we made our way back to the van station and then drove home.

And we almost made it, too. About five minutes away, the van made an odd sound, shook, and then pulled over. When we looked behind us, we could see what looked like a lot of water, or what was probably a key car fluid. It must have been important, because we had to walk the rest of the way. Luckily, it wasn't far, but it reminded me (as I often am) of the difference in Thai behavior. If that had happened at home, people would have been yelling, demanding reimbursement or a taxi to the station, even though it was only ten minute walk (it took us twenty to get back to our building). But in Thailand, people just got out, got their stuff and went on their way. Mai pen rai.

And that was my weekend in Bangkok. At the time, I thought I had spent a lot of money, but once I did the math I realized that I only spent just over 100 dollars. That's including all my meals (two of which were "expensive", 6 shirts, one pair of pants, a necklace, a bag, both van trips, transportation within Bangkok, and two nights at the hostel. Money well spent, I think.

I've posted some picture, although not all because my wireless situation isn't very dependable. I'll e-mail people the link, but I'm also posting it here.