Day 2 Bangkok

Hello everyone! So glad to see some of you are already posting comments! It seems everyone wants me to try the crickets, so I may have to ask for some of that with hot sauce today.

After leaving the Internet cafe yesterday, I went back to my B&B to find that Nanda was chatting it up with two German guys. She hadn't slept at all the night before, so she looked exhausted. She also was tired to struggling through their English. Steven told us about a great Thai massage place that has a free swimming pool that we could use, so we headed over there.

Before I go on, I have to tell you about Nanda. She is so cool. Nanda is Canadian, but currently resides in NYC. She wears several hats - she is a massage therapist (she will be doing a 2 week training course in Thai massage up in Chiang Mai) and also has a business setting up wine and cheese tours in Tuscany. She is a major foodie and world traveler. Could I have met a more perfect travel buddy than that!? She is in her early 40s and we get along great. She has even invited me to stay with her in NYC and Tuscany, and she wants to come visit me in Chicago and go to Charlie Trotter's! She has an sister who studied in Laos and Thailand, and speaks both languages with proficiency. Can you imagine the surprise of the locals when a tall, blonde white girl speaks Laotian AND Thai?

Anyway, we signed up for 1 hour massages at this hi-rise hotel while Steven pored over my copy of the latest Lonely Planet Thailand. He and his travel buddy (partner?) are heading to Koh Tao (on the Gulf of Thailand side) to go diving. I tried to convince them to go to the Similan Islands on the Andaman Sea side (that's where I want to go), as it is better diving at this time of year, but they seem dead set on the cheap diving on the island (according to Laura Fosco, Koh Tao has the 2nd cheapest diving in the world after Utila in Honduras). My masseuse, Bwoose(sp?) was absolutely amazing. I asked her how to say "feels good" in Thai (sounds like loose-sid-DEE) and the girls giggled every time I said it (which was ALOT). Unfortunately, Nanda's masseuse was not so good. She is 18 yrs old and it was her first week after finishing her massage course. Nanda knew right away, because she is trained in Thai massage as well. But she was happy that I had such a great experience. Up in Chiang Mai, where Nanda and I are heading tonight on the overnight train (about 12 hrs), there are schools for the Blind where they teach Thai massage. Because these students can't see, they have a heightened sense of touch which translates very nicely to great massages. I can't wait!

My last report from last night is our little adventure at the Night Bazaar. Steven told us we should check it out as we looked down from that high-rise hotel. He said it's great people watching, shopping and food vendor eats. It looked really close to the hotel, but when we got on another one of those tuk-tuks, we were in for an adventure.

Now I know that there are plenty of dishonest folks anywhere, and these tuk-tuk guys need to make a living too. But there seem to be plenty of crooked types of this ilk, and I have been trying to seek out the ones that DON'T talk to us and bargain a good price (I always say 40Baht because Lonely Planet said most places in the city are 30-60B). They usually quote as high as 3 times as much, so I keep saying "40 Baht, yes or no" until I get the sense of how much is the going rate. Our driver said "Night Market, 40B" and Nanda said, "no, Night Bazaar" and he said "you want to see girly-girls, or girly boys?" as he started driving. Now she recalled that when she was here for her honeymoon, she was at the Night Bazaaar which was right next to the red light district, so she thought bazaar, market, same thing. I also assumed that he was just subbing market for bazaar because of his limited English. Well, we he zipped through traffic to try and scare us, which I thought was fun and Nanda did not. He took us to some market where there were stall after stall of flower wholesalers next to jeans wholesalers and t-shirt wholesalers. Who knew that you can go shopping for orchids and crazy English t-shirts and knockoff Levis at 11pm?! The place was swarming with young Thais on dates and scoping out the crowd. Well, there were no food stalls, so we weren't going to find any dinner there. Nanda started arguing with the driver and said she wants to find good seafood. He said, "ohhhhhh you want Night Bazaar, but you said Night Market..." Well, we couldn't refute that. So he changed course and started driving like crazy again. We drove and drove and drove for what seemed like forever, passing what seems to be the financial district, a bunch of high-end hotels and finally reached some sort of night bazaar (a huge LCD sign said so) and he dropped us off. Of course, now the fare had gone up to 100B. I glared at him, handed him the money and walked off without saying thank you. He kept staring at us with a weird grin on his face as he drove past slowly. We were furious. The food was alright, and we got to try some interesting sausages. Prawn basil sausage, Curry seafood sausage, all out on display. And when you order it, they stab it with a skewer and toss it in oil (I was like, you are FRYING that sausage?). Yum. I also tried a mixed ice cream cup where I got to try about 8 kinds of Thai ice cream in tiny cubes. Very good. Needless to say, the food was fun but we were tired and had to get home... which meant more bargaining with tuk-tuk drivers. I started with my standard 40B and they gave us a hard time, even trying to pawn us off on other guys and metered taxis. I asked a security guard how far we were from our hotel (showed him the card with directions) and he said 25 minutes. Good god, I don't even know if we were in Bangkok city limits at this point. We had to pay a fat guy who also tried to take us to the red light district 100B to get home. But he wasn't a jerk like the first guy. I think I'm done with tuk tuk drivers for a while.

After getting back to our hotel, I tried the local non-beer drink for the first time. They call it "rice whiskey" and it sort of tastes like rum. So I had rice whiskey with Coke, and it was tasty. Not bad for a $1.30.

I'm not sure what I'm doing during the day yet, but we are going to take the overnight train to Chiang Mai up north tonight. Nanda took it before, and she loved the sights out the window, especially at dawn. We will also save on lodging, because it will be transportation and lodging at the same time. I have to decide if I want to head into Vientiane, Laos from Chiang Mai (Laura Fosco highly recommended Laos, as well as a random Aussie we met while waiting for our grilled octopus on a stick). So I may go to Vientiane too. Will keep you posted.

That's all for today. I think I'm going to look for some curry to have for breakfast. Haven't had any curry since I've been here, since I've been focusing on food on a stick (fruit, meat, desserts, you name it) and tons and tons of juices and teas and coffees. Like in Latin America, they give you "take away" drinks in plastic bags. The coffee here is amazing, but they love the condensed milk and tend to make it overly sweet. I have to figure out how to say "less milk" in Thai.