Scorpion

May 27

9:47am Thai time
Woke up around 5 and then 8:30. I conceded and got up and went to breakfast. It's included with the hotel which is really nice. Toast, a fried egg, pancake, and cereal with cold milk! It was amazing!!!

I totally got ripped off last night. I kinda knew it was happening too. And I feel dumb I didn't say something about it. The taxi drivers have meters and the meter was going and it was really low. Like maybe 35 or so baht. When I got to t airport I went to the airport stand and they were going to charge me 1,300 baht to get to my destination which seemed like a lot. Then she told me I would have to wait 20 minutes so I went to find a cab on my own. In all the other countries we went to we had to agree on a price before we got in the cab, so I asked before I got in how much. He said 500 baht. And compared to the airport charge it seemed good. So then the meter was going and he didn't say anything about it. When I got out I should have asked about the meter but it was 11:45pm and I was tired and confused and things were new. So I paid him the 500 baht. I should have followed my gut which was saying this isn't right. So I ended up paying him $16 when I probably only had to pay him a little over $1 or 40 baht. But, I don't feel terrible because they work for such little money. It was probably a 40 minute drive from the airport. But I'm sure he is laughing at me. And I wasted a lot of baht. Oh well.

I met a girl named Halle (like in the parent trap) in the lobby. She is doing another g adventure trip but we are going to go check out the zoo and probably walk around. My group doesn't meet until 6pm. I was just going to chill all day but if I can go out with someone I mine as well, right!

Midnight Thai time
Today was good! Halle and I went outside the hotel. There were tuk tuk drivers trying to get us to go with them to all these attractions. One guy, mr. Moley?, let us sit in his tuk tuk as the driver and take pictures. It was cute and very fun haha. No one has ever done that so far! We ended up paying him 20 baht each to take us to a boat so we could go along the river.

That was a terrible idea. It pretty much was a tourist trap and I didn't want to pay the money. You didn't even see cool things. It was 1600 baht for both of us originally. Then we walked away and she said 1000 but I still felt like it wasn't worth it so we just started walking.

Bangkok is like a big city! Like any big city. The shops are more open though, like the rest of Asia. We walked past people welding metal right in the open in their shop on the street. There aren't as many tuk tuk drivers or taxi drivers in your face about going places like in India, but they still come around. One man actually parked his tuk tuk in the middle of the road and walked over to us!

Halle is from San Diego. She is 19 and she works at a shop where she rents surf boards and other things to tourists so she meets people from all over the world. She said she can go to many countries in Europe and have a place to stay. So jealous! She hasn't traveled much but she is in Thailand for a week doing a g adventures tour in the hill tribes area in Chiang Mai. She got a 2 year degree in sociology.

We saw some temples along the way and stopped to take pictures. It's kind of like the temples in Lumbini, Nepal. Very bright and colorful and detail oriented. Dragons and elephants. There was a painted statue of a person on dragons and elephants in one of the temples and she had glued on eye lashes. It was strange but looked really nice. There was also a group of people at one of the temples with flowers. The flower was all closed up but they pulled it back to open it up and it was beautiful. Just white though. Lots of candles and incense.

I think temple is "wat" but I am not positive. The maker had from the hotel had wats all over it. We went to wat traimit (i think) and just took pictures from the outside. I don't know what things my tour does that I have already payed for in Bangkok. Plus I have 5 days alone so I can always go back. There was a lot of gold and white marble maybe? The sky was very blue today as well and that just made everything pop and look so much nicer.

There are a lot of monks walking around. More so than in Nepal I think. I'm not sure why but it throws me off a bit still. A lot of them have very bright orange clothing.

While we were walking around we stopped to ask a lot of people where we were on the map and how to get back to the hotel. It was pretty hot out today and Halle had had enough by around 1. Our hotel is in china town and we walked around that area for a while. We actually walked way past our hotel and had to meander back. At one point she said excitedly, "oh, I can feel the first bead of sweat dripping down my face." I responded, "the first of many." For real though. It's gross. Like hot yoga but all day and not just an hour ha.

We stopped at a 7-11 to get water and I wanted a magnum. Chocolate truffle. It was really good but I felt a bit sick afterward. I ate it at the hotel when we got back and I read for a while and slept.

Bangkok is not as confusing to me as India and Nepal were. There are actually street signs that are marked with the names of the roads in Thai and English. There are also signs pointing to different attractions, like there would be in Europe. The streets seem to be rather normal as well. Paved streets. Large side walks. There are even cross walks and stop lights and they count down how long you have to cross the road or how long the red light is. We should have that. I think people maybe wouldn't be as annoyed with red lights then.

The streets are very clean. People are very helpful as well, even if they don't speak English. I bought some jewelry. It was about 150 baht for 2 necklaces and 2 bracelets and she threw in a free ring. The exchange rate is about 30 baht per USD. So that was about $5. I figured I had some space because I got rid of the 50SPF bottle which was pretty large. Ashley took it from me at the elephant park. I was so happy to get rid of it! I'm also throwing away the tevas Aunt Cindy lent me because the sole just came off one of the last days I was walking around the elephant nature park. The other sole is about ready to come off as well. I felt bad throwing them out but she said it is okay. I think it will be nice as well to not have to carry them.

I feel like my English is really strange now. I hear so many accents and different ways of talking. I always want to say "I quite like it" or some other strange way of speaking British English. It's kind of awkward!

I met my roommate, April, around 4 or 4:30pm. She is from Ireland but she works in England. She is a nurse and she works with people who are not directly from the ER but just a step down from that. She told me not to work with old people for OT. I told her I wasn't planning on it haha. She is nice and I like her a lot so far.

We headed down to the hotel lobby around 6pm to meet Matt, our tour leader. I was surprised he was British. Although not too much since his name is Matt Ford I was expecting someone English and not Thai. I think he is our leader for the entire month but we do end up having local guides for different tours and things in the countries. He has been traveling for 25 years and he seems like he knows what he is doing. He knows Thai as well. I think he said he is doing his 50th loop or something through Indochina. He seems very well organized and seems to have a lot of informational sheets for us which I think will be nice.

I think there are 14 of us maybe for the first 10 days? 4 people didn't make it tonight for the meeting. There was only 1 male so far. The people are from the US, Canada, Britain, and Australia so far. Everyone seems really nice. I will write about people as I find out more about everyone.

Matt took us to dinner at this little place. It was very good. I had a singha beer which is a Thai beer and also chicken pad thai. I don't think I have ever had pad thai before. I was expecting it to be a lot more spicy but it wasn't too bad. I actually added pepper flakes to it. The chicken was good and normal looking. The dish tasted very buttery to me. The meal only cost 110 baht or $4. That would be the cost of just a cheap beer at home, let alone a whole meal!

After that, Matt pointed us in the direction of the Banglamphu district (I believe). It is a huge shopping street and night life area. It was a lot like Europe to me because there were a lot of cafes with tables and chairs outside. But it had its own twist as well. There was a lot of entertainment... Western music but they didn't really know the words lol. And a lot of bumping and lights and very loud music. There were lights and food carts all over. Spring rolls, fruit, smoothies, beer, chicken or pork, noodles, etc. We even saw scorpion on a stick! Ed bought one and bit into it, claws and all! He asked if anyone wanted to try the rest and I figured why not... So I tried scorpion! I think it's really hard to explain how it tasted. It was crunchy on the outside and the inside was not like crunchy like a shell but kind of harder, more of a substance. It doesn't taste like chicken. I have no idea how to describe it though. It was kind of stringy inside and dry. Jenn, I'm sure you're dying right now haha.

There were a lot of massage places along the side of the walking street as well. They had reclining chairs with cushions set up. There were a lot of them. Maybe 20 or so chairs. Maybe more. You could get a hand massage or a foot massage. I think also a back massage but I didn't pay too much attention to the signs.

They also walk up to you with little signs that have a list of sexual things on them. Like pussy ping pong and snake cigarettes and all these other things with pussy. It was a bit of a shock at first! They also walk around making the noise with it. Like a pop sound. When you purse your lips together and suck them in and open your mouth. It's funny! They are all shows as well. I don't really know exactly what they are but I can guess haha ...

There are double decker buses here too. And the tuk tuks at night, well some of them, have party lights or rope lights. Matt said to not take a tuk tuk here because they rip you off. Metered taxis! And make sure the meter is always running! We had to fight with cab drivers to get back tonight. They wanted to charge us 250 or 300 baht for 5 of us. But it should only be 70 baht so we insisted the meter be used. Some drivers wouldn't take us. We squeezed 4 of us in the back (Marianna, Kristen, April, and I) and Ed took the front. I think a lot of people don't like Bangkok because as a tourist you really get ripped off a lot. Or they at least try to rip you off. I think I'll just need to be very wary of it.

We have to get up at 5:30am tomorrow to pack and be eating by 6am. We need to be leaving by 6:30am to go to the Cambodian border. He said if we leave earlier it makes it less likely we need to wait for 2 hours in the heat to go across the border.

I have to get my Cambodian visa still so that will be interesting. Matt said we actually get it before we get to the border because it goes faster. It's 1100 baht or about $35. He said the ATMs in Cambodia actually spit out USDs at you. I hope we still get to use whatever money they have there though! The exchange rate is crazy! It was 3,942 to $1 when I looked the other day. I don't think my brain will do very well with those conversions. People on my last trip said you can get a million dollar bill so I want one haha. Then I can feel semi rich even though its not USD.

I need to try to sleep though. We have a wake up call in 4.5 hours. And this is probably why I keep getting sick! I'm going to try to start taking Vitamin C on travel days.

P.S. I did find out that April didn't get screwed getting from the airport to the hotel. She met a British woman who works in Bangkok and she helped her get a metered taxi. She paid about 100 baht. So I guess I only overpaid by 400 baht instead of 450 baht.