BANGKOK

Sorry my first blog entry is so late coming--I've been totally on the go since I arrived. After my night stopover in Singapore, I finally arrived in Bangkok! It was pretty overwhelming to say the least. Met Laura and Megan on the Kao San Road (the most famous backpacker hub in asia) after getting dropped a few blocks short of our meeting place (McDonalds) because my taxi driver pretended to not know what McDonalds was. People here lie about everything! Carrying my backpack along the Kao San and back to our guesthouse was the most unconfortable 10mins of my life! Sweltering heat+backpack+long sleeves = no fun at all. The three of us decided to check out a local wat (buddist temple) which was pretty amazing. There were monks everywhere! Partied it up with Megan and Laura at the Irish Pub that night. I had to fight off jet lag so I decided to have a couple of authentic vodka red bulls. Kao San is such a crazy place I can't even put it into words. Tuk Tuk drivers (crazy little 3 wheel taxis with open backs) yell at "Hey you mam, where you go I take you"--their ultimate goal is to rip off westerners though. There are no set prices for anything here so you have to bargain for everything from clothes to taxi fares. I've already had a taxi drive in circles knowing that none of us would notice to rip us off. You have to yell four crucial things when you get into a cab here: "METER, NO STOPS, NO GAS, NO GEMS, NO SUITS" because cab drivers are given commission to take you to gem stores or tailors, etc.

Megan and I took a river ferry down the chao phyra to check out Bangkok's famous Wat Arun. It was pretty spectacular. The only problem with the wats is that a lot of areas are sealed off. Monk access only? We did get inside a couple of the temples and we remembered how to do all the proper bows that Laura taught us. Megan and I shopped Kao San a bit (its basically 4/5 blocks of hundreds of stalls and stores selling counterfit EVERYTHING! then hopped on a bus for an 8hr drive to Chumpon. At Chumpon we were tossed off the bus at 2am into a holding room that consisted of a hard floor with rugs tossed in the corners. The bus driver threw vinyl pillows on the ground and from that we figured that these were our accomodations for the night. At 6am, same bus driver, got us up and back to the bus to head to the boat pier for a 3hour beautiful boat ride to Koh Tao ("Turtle Island"). I got my first Thai sunburn at 9am that day! Who knew you could burn that early in the day? Megan and I are having a wicked time here. So wicked that I can't spend anymore time in this internet place because we have so much to see!

PHOTOS: Laura in our lovely airconditioned guesthouse in Bangkok, Buddhas at Wat Arun, stickers found on buses and on boats so the monks always have a place to rest, Bangkok traffic, and the main temple at Wat Arun.