More bang for your Baht

Hi All,

Sorry for the long silence but I've been away from the internet for the past couple days, and god knows that can be a good thing sometimes. I am having such a blast here, I don't know where to even start. We've done so much over the past week.

The rest of our stay in Bangkok involved a trip to an incredible temple Wat Po which has an enormous, gilded reclining buddha inside an equally bejeweled temple. Even the buddha's feet are inlaid with mother of pearl. We took a ferry up river to get there which gave us a great view of a bunch of other riverside temples and then we took it back down to chinatown where we wandered through the flower and vegetable market and ate a tasty indian dinner in the tiny restaurant hidden down an alley. The kitchen was next to the restaurant down this alley and we could see the cook making kebabs. The Rough guide reccommended it or we never would have found it and given the cleanliness... or lack there of, of chinatown, we were a bit skeptical but the food was delicious, light nan breads, and indian curries and cool lime soda...mmmm. We also hit up the Bangkok aquariam which featured an enormous coral reef and shark tank. Strangely, it also had corporate sponsorship which manifested itself in brand name washing machines and cars converted into tropical fish aquariams... cool but wierd. The next day we got up early and went to tour "Jim Thompson's House" which was put together by this American who was born in 1907 in Delaware and fell in love with Thailand after being stationed there for some reason. He brought together six traditional thai houses from various parts of thailand and had the disassembled and brought to Bangkok where he had them put back together again and interconnected to make one large compound. Thai architecture is very minimal looking on the inside and very much to my taste, lots of dark wood and clean lines and open air. There was also a glorious garden with lush tropical vegetation and flowers and sculpture.

We learned the value of bartering at the Patpong night markets where all the vendors quote ridiculous prices just to see if anyone is dumb enough to take the bait. I still probably got stroked but picked up a great pair of beach shorts and handbag for under a tenner. The Patpong market is also home to the Thai sex industry so while trying to buy cheap asian goods, the farangs are accosted by people trying to sell you the ping-pong show... while beautiful thai prostitutes lean out of doorways in black bikinis. I'll leave the mechanics of the ping-pong show to your imagination but the ping-pong is not the only feature of these thai sex shows... the touts hand you a list of other things that these women do with their "lady gardens". Yikes.

Tuesday was a traveling day and we flew to phuket and took a taxi up to Khao Lak. The taxi driver was a boy-racer who overtook motor-bikes, tuk-tuks and songthaews with ease and none of the taxis have seatbelts! Luckily we arrived in one piece to Poseidon Bungalows down a dusty, dirt road onto a beautful ocean front outcropping. Our wooden bungalow was on the end of the path and had a little porch looking out onto a wide blue sea with pink hibiscus flowers blooming all around it. We spent the first day moving from the beach to the open air restaurant and just tried to adjust to the fact that we were truly and properly on our holidays!

Well, I haven't caught you up yet, but I've been sitting here for too long already and it's time to get back into the sun. More on the Ko Similian and Ko Lanta islands soon.

Lots of Love from tropical climes.

D.