Day 3 Tahiland

Before I tell you about my third day in Thailand, I must tell you that I forgot to mention one of the most intersting things that I did on the second day. I was sitting in a bar with Vanessa, drinking a bucket (more on that later), watching the San Diego Chargers battle the Seattle SeaHawks (Super cool), and all of a sudden a Thai cop waklks in and sits down beside us. Well, from everything I've seen on TV, I am supposed to fear the Thai cops. But I was half-cut and I didn't give a damn, so I went and talked to him. He was super nice and he amazingly let me play with his gun and blow his whistle. And I didn't even get thrown in the "Bangkok Hilton" (If you don't know, google it!)

So I woke up on the third day with a slight bucket hangover (a bucket is a mickey of Thai rum, a Red Bull (the real shit), and a can of coke). Today was my call as I had "given in" to Vanessa's request to go shopping the day before, so I decided that we should go and check out all of the cool temples in Bangkok. I blogged a couple months back about how I was amused by Seoul's fusion of old temples and new buildings, but Seoul cannot hold a candle to Bangkok. There were sooooo many cool temples in Bangkok.

We started off by walking the block or so from our hotel to the pier and took a river boat through the heart of Bangkok. WOW! It was a surreal experience to see the massive city of Bangkok from it watery innards. There were so many amazing temples along the banks of the river and it was amazing to see the skyscrapers draped in behind them. We got off the boat about 30 blocks from the hotel and started out on our mission. Our weapon: a map of Bangkok, our mission: see as many temples on the way back to our hotel as possible, prognosis: huge success.

I have never in my life seen so many cool spiritual bastions in one area. Bangkok has a certain irresistible charm in that it really holds onto its tradition, yet it truly embraces Western culture as well. Along the way, Vanessa and I stopped and prayed in a couple of breathtaking temples (had to in order to increase the peace), took loads of amazing pictures. We even stopped along our adventures and witnessed a middle school class of boys and girls participating in a wooden sword fight en masse Braveheart-style. They told me what it was called by I forget.

Unfortunately,we weren't able to see all of the temples that we wanted to on account of our flight to Phuket and our need to get to the airport. We almost didn't make it as well, because one of the Western cultures that the Thais really embrace is the traffic jam. It took us almost triple the time to get to the airport what it took us to get from the airport. We made it though and had a short one hour trip to Phuket, AKA Tourist Town.

I will end this entry here because the rest of the night was pretty much dedicated to finding a lodging facility for the night. Day 4: Chillin on the beach, and breakdown moto-style.

Ronnie