A bunch of stuff about Bangkok -- Sarah and Naomi's forum of coolness

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Date Posted: 21:10:27 08/01/03 Fri
Author: Sarah
Subject: A bunch of stuff about Bangkok

Hi everyone!
How is everything going with everyone? Me and Nomi are still in Bangkok, though we're thinking of leaving in a few days. We have a few ideas about what to do next, Nomi really wants to see the old capital, Ayuthaya or something like that. A lot of it's in runes now I think because it was stormed by Burmese elephants a few hundred years ago. Silly Burmese elephants.

I want to go see the bridge over the river Kwai. I think it's in a town just outside of Bangkok, so it shouldn't be hard to get to. There's also a monk-run POW museum there which might be interesting, though perhaps somewhat depressing also. Another interesting/depressing thing we might do is see the forensics museum in Bangkok. Lots of preserved bodies on display, and info about famous serial killers, that sort of thing. If we do go, I think we'd better eat first, we may not have much of an appetite afterwards.

We'll probably go visit the national art gallery of Thailand today, if only because it's within a 10 minute walk of here. It's not supposed to be that great though.

I've been getting strong desires every morning to walk into the kitchens of the restaurants around here to show them the proper way to prepare "western style" breakfasts. I had cornflakes one morning but that was really just a huge bowl of homo milk with a few cornflakes sprinkled on the top. My french toast yesturday was just deep fried bread, and my pankake this morning had a little too much sugar in it(though it wasn't so bad really). I'm thinking of ordering toast and jam tomorrow, they'd have a hard time messing that one up! It doesn't seem like anyone showed them how to make western food, they just looked the recipes up on the internet one day and tried to figure them out. But really, how hard can it be to make a bowl of cornflakes! Can't wait to have bread pudding when we get home, i've been craving that for some time now.

Me and Nomi are getting much better at avoiding scams and touts. We had one taxi driver the first day who was trying very hard to take us on a 3 hour shopping trip(he gets paid by the shop owners of course), but we were very firm with him and assured him he was wasting his time, we wouldn't leave the cab until he took us where we wanted to go(he wouldn't get paid by the storekeeps unless we actually went into the stores), and eventually he realized he was just wasting gas and he took us to our hostel. It was kind of funny really, because although me and Nomi were starting to feel quite annoyed by him, we just kept smiling and laughing anyways while we were argueing with him. Thais see anger and frustruation as a sign of weakness, It's much more productive to just keep a smile on your face, even if you really feel like hitting the person.

Were getting hassled less in general now, I think were starting to give off the "experienced tourist" vibe. We've even had a few scam artists(guys in nice suits who hang around tourist sites and casually chat up tourists for a few minutes and tell them something along the lines of "the temples are closed today" before trying to herd them off somewhere else) come over to chat us up, and then leave within a minute before even getting to the scam part of the conversation. Then we see them walk over to a different group of tourists instead. I think the fact that we've been here before and act quite sure of ourselves and what were doing turns them off fairly quickly.

Thai food is so yummy! We found a wonderful little restaurant down the street that makes great pad thai, and another that has really good coconut soup, and the spring rolls around here are always so good,as are the currys(although we've stopped eating these because they don't seem to agree with our tummies so well) and the fried rice and the fruit shakes! I wish I was hungry all the time so I could try everything! Unfortunately I don't get very hungry here, I think it's the heat. Me and Nomi usually just have two small meals a day. Though we do have the occasional snack or fruit shake as well. I hope we're able to make some of these dishes from our thai recipe books(the ones from our cooking course) when we get back!

Me and Nomi found a nice little park just a few blocks away from where we are staying. It's really neat there in the late afternoons and evenings. All the students and travellers hang out there and mingle together, and activities like juggling, playing drums, and break dancing, are quite popular. There's also a very busy outdoor aerobics session at 6:05(just after the kings anthem plays). It's right in front of the river and tons of people take part. We were wondering how the Thai people all manage to stay so healthy!

Another reason the park is cool is becaus it's a good place to watch the approaching night storms. You can sit by the water and watch the lightening flashes in the far off clouds. Sometimes the rain comes early, and the aerobics class is cut short. The lightening is really cool to see, I wish I could take a picture for you but I don't think it would turn out. Nomi and I might get some pad thai and spring rolls from a street vender tonight and take it to the park for a picnic. We've spent the last two evening's there playing cards and scrabble. It's much better than just hanging out in the movie cafes.

This is turning into a very long message! I guess I'll go for now. Bye!
-Sarah

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