My most beautiful memory of Thailand - Serenity in Pai (pictures to follow as I can't get on the net properly)

The journey to Pai is both beautiful and terrifying.  You won’t see beautiful countryside like this in many places – rolling hills and mountains covered is lush green trees of all varieties.  Terrifying because the roads are so bendy, and so high – at one point we were driving through the clouds.  Sufficed to say not having a head for heights I played angry birds on my friends i-Pad throughout most of the journey.

Arriving in Pai was like arriving in another world – a small cosy and yet stunning place which although a mecca for real travellers is as yet unravaged by Thailand’s booming tourism industry.

Instantly, you chill out.  Instantly the words “this place is beautiful” come out of your mouth.  I could see why so many people raved about Pai.

Our guesthouse was also a real place of tranquillity.  A spacious room with shower, fan and two beds for 250 baht per night is hard to beat in Thailand.  A few nights later we would drink in the hammocks by the riverside in the resorts where we stayed – a really chilled atmosphere.

Pai is a small place.  Probably no bigger than Soho in London.  Its main attractions lie within the square of restaurants, yoga retreats and bars probably within one square mile and surrounded by countryside and hills and mountains.

The “spirit of Pai” was everywhere you went.  It’s a hard thing to describe, but essentially it’s like going somewhere you instantly feel at home at and are taken aback by at the same time. 


(Some pictures from Pai below)

The food there, whilst not strictly traditionally Thai, is fantastic.  Our favourite haunt become the “Witching Well” – which had a knack for doing simple dishes with a panache of flair.  Also good were the pizza place next to it (name I can’t remember) and some raw food place which served a delicious carrot and ginger gazpacho (I know, really earth mother of me).  Also a must try is the curry shack – which is, yes, a shack, run by one man.  It’s popular, and he cooks the dishes after taking the orders himself, in the order he took the orders in.  Order. (Too many orders in that sentence).

I decided that Pai was a place to try some new things – things to cleanse the body and spirit (more the latter than the former, it turned out).  To kick things off, that night we headed to the Edible Jazz café next to our resort, which had a really chilled atmosphere and live Jazz music (never been to a proper Jazz place before).

The next day we signed up to do 2 hours of Yoga with Mama Mam.  Mama Mam was an enigma.  She was 65, yet looked 40, could pull both her legs over her head, and was such an engaging woman.  After our session she brought some food for us all to eat and each one of us was enthralled for 45 minutes straight with her stories.  She had grown up a model and actress.  Went to an Indian ashram in her early 20s to learn yoga.  Came back to Thailand and was one of the first pioneers of the art form in the area.  She had been married with two children, was Pai’s only Hindu and had only been ill only once. 

The yoga itself was pretty intense.  I am neither flexible, nor patient, so it was quite difficult for me.  Although Mama Mam did teach us to do a Yogic headstand and afterwards I really felt awake and like a new man.

But that wasn’t enough for me.  Eastern culture is all about balance – the ying and the yang.  So to balance the spiritual ying of yoga, Seema and I decided to enrol in a hard core Muay Thai boxing class.  It was there we met Ger – an Irish dude travelling for a year, and then later his friend Richard, Londoner and plumber with whom we’d spend many nights drinking, chatting and generally having a laugh.

Muay Thai is steeped in Thailand’s culture.  As a sport it represents the Thai people very well – resilient and tenacious.  My reckoning of Muay Thai is that it’s a pretty brutal but exceptionally skilful sport.  So I thought I’d give it a try. 

So, a beginner’s Thai lesson looks something like this.  10 minutes of skipping.  10 of cycling.  15 of arm, abs and pec exercises.  Jumping alternately on a tyre.   Then comes technique.  Left and right punches and hooks.  Defensive stance.  Body kicks.  Flying kicks.  Front kicks.  Head kicks. Front elbow.  Overhead elbow and reverse elbow.  Let me tell you a little about this.  The reverse elbow is lethal – essentially you spin round and aim your elbow for the temple of your opponents head.  I’ve seen it done once successfully in a Muay Thai fight and the guy was out cold straight away.  Then onto the bags to practice punches and kicks – the Thais kick very hard so the bags were very tough.  Then back into the ring for “pad” exercises – where you do these in combination for half an hour.   Then sparring (I was initially crap at this).  Then “warm down” exercises, which essentially consisted of more exercises for the abs.  Two hours later I could barely walk, but felt amazing.  So I went back the next day for some more physical punishment.  I loved it – may take this up longer term.

That night we went to a party at the “Yellow Sun” bar in Pai with the whole gang.  With its psychedelic colours, Thai rasta manager and Thai style dub step music it was a pretty cool place to hang out.   Then onto a club (I say club – it was a bar within a huge hut) with an equally cool vibe and a dance floor made of bamboo which made everyone bounce lots.

As you can imagine – the next day was very much a chill out day – and Pai is a great place to chill out at.  Two fruit shakes and a cup of wheatgrass juice later I felt human again (enough to go back to Muay Thai).

Pai was seriously amazing – I could write about it for a lot longer, but this post has been long enough.

(p.s. The journey back from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was ******* horrible – twelve hours on an over air conditioned 3 carriage train sat on seats overnight was not fun.  One last day of shopping in Bangkok with some cool purchases.  Bye bye Thailand – I’ll miss you for a few months until I come back…..)

Chiang Mai

Another sleeper train, another journey. This time to Chiang Mai from Hua Lumpong station in Bangkok.  The experience was every bit as enjoyable as the first time – you can pick up a second class sleeper bed with air con for around 600/700 baht – which is particularly good for a 13 hour journey. 

(above left - a crab in Chiang Mai Market)

On the train I met two lovely American girls, one of whom worked in Bangkok as a teacher.  I love meeting Americans abroad as they try to compensate for the (completely unfair) perception of the majority of Americans by being super nice and great to chat with.   The teacher asked me an interesting, but completely valid question: what’s the strangest thing you’ve seen whilst you’ve been in Thailand.  For me it has to be a toss up between fat water boy (see previous post) and 4 people and a dog on a moped.  Apparently she had seen a dog with a paper tray around its neck full with photocopies of official documents.  After 20 minutes, we still couldn’t work out what the dog would have been doing.

Chiang Mai was a world apart from Bangkok.  A big city in a small city is the only way I can describe it. It’s kinda like a mini Bangkok but without the pollution and madness.

It is basically a city with a city wall and its own moat, which unsuccessfully tried to keep out the Burmese or Khmer (I wasn’t listening) a great night market, great culture and food, including an Israeli and Burrito restaurant, both of which I have eaten at.

One of the main reasons for visiting Chiang Mai was to see my friend Seema whom I used to work with.  It was amazing to see someone who I knew, kinda emotional, and we had so much to catch up on. 

After checking in and showering (I didn’t bring my jim jams – not that I own a pair - so I had to sleep in my clothes on the train) we went to get a coffee at the coffee house where I am now writing this blog (Kopf Coffee in Chiang Mai – great coffee, Wi-Fi and pool).  There we met Paul – a very well travelled English footballer who was about to sign for Chiang Mai FC.   Thence began the creation of a new gang to hang out with.

Now, at school there was always the problem of having two Pauls in my class.  Inevitably my moniker would be appropriated to “Afshar” or just “football head” (see previous post) so having two Pauls again presented a problem.  I’m known as Reza (my Iranian name) and Paul interchangeably to some people, so this seemed a suitable solution. The only problem is, that Thais, and from my limited experience the Chinese, choose or decide not to pronounce “r”, or rather, they pronounce is a “L”.  So as Reza caught on, I became known to Thais as “Lezza” or “Leesa”.  Bad times.

Fortunately/ unfortunately it was “Buddha Day” all over the country – a religious holiday.  So we decided to head to the bigger of Chiang Mai’s Buddhist temples.  I’m quite spiritual, but don’t define by one religion, but once you enter the temples, a strange tranquillity and peace takes over you.  The architecture is so beautiful and the monks (some child monks) seem so at peace with the world and their existence.  We approached a monk to receive a prayer.  We knelt down whilst he prayed for us, sprinkled us with holy water and gave us a white bracelet for luck.  I still have it on.

Later that night, our gang grew by two more as we randomly met two Canadian girls on the street (I know this sounds bad, but they were staying at our guesthouse and we recongised them) – Sarah and Hailey.  What is it with these damn Canadians and Thailand Ey?  (apparently Canadian’s say “Ey” at the end of every sentence – although this was soon corrected by said two girls.

I decided that this week I was going to try and pick up my ill fated exercise routine again.  So Seema and I enlisted the help of professional sportsman Paul at the 50 baht gym.  There was born the “300 workout”.  The workout is so called as the cast of the (pretty rubbish) film 300 used it to get buff.  10 sets of intense exercise later I could barely stand and was certainly not ready to face the intense Thai sun again. 

We then went to the UN Irish Pub (don’t ask me where the “UN” comes from) which, according to the menu was started by a woman from Donegal, who then married an Thai guy, and then returned to Ireland where ownership passed to said Thai guy who then sold it to a Kiwi and an Aussie.  Maybe that’s where the UN came from.

It was there we planned our trip to Pai.  I had heard a lot about Pai from various travellers back in the UK and out here.  But I was not prepared for how amazing it was – more to follow later.

On Buddha Day most of the bars were closed or could not serve alcohol until after 12pm.  But, like all things in Thailand, there was a way around this.  Earlier that day we met another addition to our group – Ruth – an Isreali girl who was travelling around South East Asia for an indefinite amount of time.  So we invited her out that night.  With her, Paul, Seema and the two girls began many drinking games and a McDonald’s later (you can take the boy out of England…) we headed to bed.

After a few more excursions around Chiang Mai (which has a lot to offer at night, but not so much (in the city at least during the day)) we had a massage.  Note to self and everyone else, having a Thai massage by a bloke is a painful but ultimately rewarding experience.  I have never felt the pain of a Thai man’s hands until that day, but afterwards it felt like I had a new body.

The Chiang Mai night market is great and has a real buzz.  Selling more Thai wares than the Patpong night market we scuttered around looking at everything from Thai silk to handheld tazers disguised as mobile phones (scary things) and the girls came back with some pretty nice stuff.

That night, however, has to possibly be my worst night in Thailand.  After searching for a decent bar (failed) we headed down what initially looked like a market of bars.  It was soon we discovered (after ordering our drinks) that this was a bazaar of around 30-40 “girlie” bars where some pretty rank old western men paid for over-priced drinks to grope Thai girls.  There was also a mis-placed Muay Thai boxing ring in the centre of it all, where some “show fights” took place.  (Show fights are exactly that – a bad WWF style form of fighting where it is all staged and fighters are intentionally mismatched for the viewers humour).  We called it a night after a 6’5” fat English bloke beat a 4’ Thai guy who feigned unconsciousness in the first round.  Bah.

We were all ready to go to Pai.

Bangkok Part Deux

I made the journey from Kho Pangang to Bangkok by taxi, boat, bus and train.  A boat to the mainland, bus to Surrathani and train to Bangkok, where I arrived at 6am in the morning.  Having never been on a sleeper train in my life, I was suitably impressed with a) the efficient preparation of the train by the staff (everyone seems to wear pristinely pressed police like uniforms) and b) the relative comfort of the bed.  Being 5’10” and two thirds (read smaller than I want to be) the bed was ever so slightly too small for my height, but I surprisingly slept all the way through to arrive at Bangkok’s Ruang Mang station that morning.  (I am such a transport geek – see pictures).

The Danes and the Brits were coming up later that day and the next day respectively so I decided to do some washing and shopping in Bangkok.

A small interlude here.   Thailand’s weather is fantastic – exactly how I like it – hot enough to never wear a jacket nor trousers and sunny enough to make everything look nice.  Apart from when it rains.  I have never seen rain like it.  Bangkok suffered from a torrential downpour of rain that morning, but it was nothing like the heavens opening on Kho Pangang.  Thrice the island was struck by a tropical storm and thrice there was a power outage.    (A short vid below to highlight).

Having lost, broken or had stolen (by a stripper – don’t ask) my other three pairs of sunglasses, and despite the rain, I decided that this necessary accoutrement to my attire was the first thing to get.  Shopping in Thailand is a little slice of comedy.  Bartering is acceptable, in fact welcomed, and you’d soon be out of pocket if you paid the original price quoted.  The calculator is also a must for any Thai shop/ stall owner.  Note the following exchange (I was bartering on behalf of my friend, as apparently my Thai is better.)

“How much for this?” (an imitation designer bracelet)

(Punches into calculator 1,300 Baht)

“Ah Paeng mak, Mai au laka farang (I don’t want the foreign price).”

“OK.  I give you good price.”  (punches in another number – which is 600 baht).

“Nope”

(Friend punches in a number, which is 100 baht.)

“OK. OK.  250 baht”.

Crazy eh?!

Bangkok shopping is pretty great.  You can pick up some wild bargains on anything.  The MBK centre near Siam is great for that and I was very happy with my Windows 7 software and Rosetta Stone Mandarin Chinese (or Mandarin Chiness) which I picked up from there.   Siam Paragon is most definitely for the well heeled and affluent and is easily on a par with London’s shopping malls.  Siam Discovery and the Siam centre are also good for staples including Levis and a few home grown brands.

That day I managed to pick up computer software, a Patek Phillippe watch, DVDs and my prized purchase – a Lil’ Wayne wife beater. It will be making an appearance in London, weather permitting.

After meeting up with a somewhat tired pack of Danes and Brits, we decided to pursue the whole experience again – it was nice to play tour guide although one of our group was fined nearly 2000 baht for “disposing” of a cigarette in an unsuitable place.  After a lot of wrangling and bartering, we got it down to half of that and a slap on the wrist.  Note for the future self, never break any rules when abroad.

To celebrate our last night together, we hit the Bangkok night life, including the Patpong night market.  If it exists, and you want a cheap but very credible and quality copy, it’s here.  Patpong is also home to Bangkok’s notorious red light district.  There is no shortage of (quite fantastically attractive) women beckoning you in wish the promise of a dance, or more, in fact, usually more.   It was an experience walking down that road in itself.  If you are not touched, grabbed, pulled, caressed or groped by a woman (or “woman”) walking down that road you are either invisible or have leprosy.  Off we headed back to the backpackers area (Koa Sarn road).

In a club in Thailand, you are guaranteed to hear three songs – at least this year anyway, and at least three times in the night.  The first is Jennifer Lopez – on the floor (also known as the “la la la la la la la la la” song) .  The second is Chris Brown – Yeah 3x.  The third is either Pitbull – Calle Ocho or Rihanna – S&M.  All good tunes, until you’ve heard them a billion times. 

Next stop Chiang Mai.  

Kho Pangang Part II

The thing I quickly realised about Kho Phangang was that it is, at its heart, a party island.  Not on the scale of Kho Samui or Phuket or Pattaya.  But the tourists and travellers it attracts love their music, love their parties, and some love their drugs. (A small caveat here, I’m dead against drugs and certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to try them in Thailand, where the penalty can be life in prison!)

In the hotel I was staying in I spent an amazing 8 days with a group of guys and girls who all just seemed to click.  It’s a strange thing when you’re travelling that you basically speak to pretty much anyone, get along with pretty much anyone and lose your inhibitions.  I couldn’t imagine approaching people in a bar and just starting a conversation with them in London.

Initially there were 3 Canadians and me, which reduced to one and me (cautious Steve/ Wolverine), and then in quick succession 2 other British guys (Tom and Jake), 3 Danish (Kristian, Katrine and Mybrit) and, later, two further Brits (Rory and James).  Brought together by a half Thai/ half Mandarin/ half Swiss half everything women who worked at the resort (Jennita) and the excellent cook from Chiang Mai (Edward) (which is where I am writing this blog).

Together we rented a huge 4x4 jeep to tour the Island, visited some luscious beaches and waterfalls, watched Thai boxing, practise scuba dived, Half Mooned (party rather than pulling your pants down) swam, drank, ate (some awesome pizzas on the island) listened to some sick (apparently that’s a word the young people use these days) music). 

The thing about the Thais is that they’re pretty relaxed about everything.   We managed to rent a (pretty expensive) jeep without a deposit, nor a driving license.  In it, we visited Malibu beach, which is probably one of the best beaches I’ve been to in Thailand (see picture) a wicked waterfall, Had Salad and an elephant sanctuary (which looked less like a sanctuary than a tourist attraction). 

The waterfall had a rope swing, which gave a group of 7 twenty somethings a mad rush of juvenile adolescence (see video below).  The funniest thing was the amazingly fat Thai boy (at least 250 pounds – which is unusual for a 12 year old Thai kid) who lived near the waterfall.  When he jumped in the rock pool, there was chaos.  He managed also to (seemingly) disguise a large bag of crisps and a 1 litre bottle of Coca Cola under his rolls, which he pulled out when in the water whenever he was hungry/ thirsty.  Him and his friends had concocted a game where he would sit at the narrowest point where the water flowed over the rocks, and in doing so stopped the water flowing into the rock pool.  Our group came up with a theory that he was fattened up so he could become the “water stopping” tourist attraction for the waterfall.  Bit cruel, I know.

The elephant sanctuary was more novel than nice, largely because it had a group of crazed monkeys in cages who grabbed at your belongings as you walked by, venomous snakes and a pen/ spectator stadium for model crocodiles, which we found weird.  One of the Danes had an idea that he should reach in, grab the crocodile by both sides of its mouth and take a picture, allowing us to brag to friends that we had wrestled a crocodile.  By some luck of fate, however, another of the group had a spare banana and decided to try to throw it into the mouth of the crocodile.  It wasn’t a model.  And it snapped (see video below. Thank god he didn’t put his hand in, otherwise the crocs would have got their first taste of Danish cuisine.

I’ve played SO much pool since I’ve been here, I’m thinking of taking it up professionally when I get back to the UK.  As if it were a metaphor for my life, I’m able to do the trickiest of shots and angles with ease, but when it comes to a straight pot, I snuff it.  Sufficed to say my (developing) skills I think have earned some good man points.

Having tried the local cuisine, I have discovered perhaps the spiciest (“Pet Mak” in Thai) Thai dish I have ever tasted – the Papaya Salad.  Imagine noodles.  Then forget them and imagine a plate chillies, with some noodles and cucumber.  It nearly blew my head off and sufficed to say I couldn’t finish it. 

How many E-numbers in this one glass?

What I have found amazing is the strangely limited amount of Thai language I’ve needed to get by.  Being able to haggle is a must.  Paeng Mak! (too expensive) Kho laka lidee (bad spelling, but give me a good price) and Mai au laka farang (I don’t want the foreign price) are all staple parts of a travellers existence.  Calling something delicious (Aroi mak) and someone beautiful (Soi/ Loi mak) can also be helpful.  Terms of courtesy (Sabaadi Mai Cap – how are you) and polite ways of telling someone to bugger off (Mai cap) help you strike up a rapport and usually avoid the constant street hassling.

The older Thai women love me for it.  Or at least they pretend to do.  Next stop, Half Moon Party.

The Half Moon Party.

Every month, the jungle in Thailand is taken over for the Half Moon party.  Unlike the Full Moon party (which was a week later on Kho Pangang) it is not on a beach and the music is pretty strictly part techno, part trance, part dance and house with a Thai kick.

I have a million pictures of that night, most of which make me look like a crazy raver (which is not my natural milieu), but sufficed to say the organisers really made an effort with it.  They built a stadium in a large clearing in the trees with some crazy fluorescent lighting arrangements all around – it was like a secret garden with two levels. 

The thing with the Half Moon party is that everyone makes an effort.  Not necessarily in terms of clothes, but in terms of body paint – of the fluorescent variety. As you can see from the pics it looks like I have arrived in the present day from a dystopian Mad Max like future where we all wear glow body paint before we go out hunting. 

It was a really excited but at the same time chilled environment and, like always in Thailand, strangers would just start approaching others and start chatting.  

I did learn something about myself that night, which has been confirmed many times since.  I cannot, as I once thought I could, dance.  I have two dances, one of which involves pointing my fingers strategically in the air, with the occasional air grab for good measure.  The other involves me clapping like a mad Iranian uncle to the music (usually out of time) with a very excited face.  I am now trying to make this a dance craze (a la “the shuffle” from the LMFAO video) in Thailand and later China.  Work in progress.

For some reason, the parties in Thailand have to finish at 2am.  So we all packed into a “taxi” and made the journey back to our resort which had a pool bar (which I think was still serving drinks) where the party carried onto into the early hours.  A trip to the 7-11 store (which are omnipresent in Thailand) at some obscene hour in the morning to get a hot dog where I spent 15 minutes meticulously arranging the salad around in the bun in a neat pattern was not a good idea.  Only for it to drop on the floor.

Time for some culture.  Off to Chiang Mai.

Some of the guys

The Jeep

  

The rock pool, with lady

Elephunk

Practice scuba diving

Th-Islands (and my large head getting me into trouble, again)

So I've made the decision to travel to one of Thailand's most famous islands (see what I did with the title...) - Kho Pangang, also known to the traveller as the home of the Full Moon Party.

Travelling around Thailand is an experience in and of itself.  Bangkok is busy and takes a long time to negotiate but the rest of the country is fairly well connected by road and (sometimes) by train and air.

Rong Meung train station in Bangkok

I was picked up in Bangkok by a polite lady who walked us through a back street market where we waited an hour for a coach.  The side of the coach was painted with Disney characters which made me think I was going to the Dignitas clinic and the cartoons were there to placate me.  The bus had "reclining" seats, although I can sleep anywhere and I was conked out for the 8 hour journey until we arrived at a desolate pier at 2:30am in the morning.  Whilst waiting for our 7am boat I got thick with a group of Americans who were arguing with a group of British about Osama Bin Laden's capture and assassination.  It was interesting to see where the cultural divides lied - with the Americans unequivocally in favour of the action and the Brits not so sure.

Lots of trees...

Alas, the rest of the details of the trip are fairly standard - a long boat ride negotiating some beautiful islands along the way until we arrived at Pangang with its rolling mountains covered in green trees.  Along the way there were at least as many Thais as "farangs" on the boat who were trying to sell diving excursions on the neighbouring island of Kho Tao.  The idea of scuba diving has always interested me, but the thought of my lungs exploding from coming up too early doesn't make me want to try it.  I've been promised a free dive in a swimming pool (I felt a bit like I was back to being potty trained) so we'll see.

This is my second time on the island - it's hot, beautiful, stunning scenery, great food, big enough to not get bored and small enough to negotiate with a moped, which I rented out as soon as I got to my room.  Mopeds and motorcycles are a staple means of transport for Thais and you're often confronted with the scene of baby, child, mother, daughter and a 6 by 4 on the back of 1 moped.  

Sufficed to say safety comes first for me so it's just one person on my moped and a helmet.  The only problem being that Thais have small heads, and half Iranian boys seem to have very large ones so I was confronted with the embarrassing situation of trying to explain to a Thai person that my head was too big for all the helmets and did they have an extra large one.  They didn't, so I've been reduced to wearing a large cycling helmet which has given me a few strange looks as I cycle down the roads with my (fake) Ray Bans looking "cool".

A secluded beach I found on Pangang

Everyone in Thailand seems to be an expert masseuse and from my A-Level economics I worked out that more supply = lower price.  You can pick up a good hour long massage for about 3-4 quid (they don't have the pound sign on this keyboard).  Oil massage, foot massage (video below of my pasty pasty legs taking part in a foot oil massage), head massage.  It's less relaxing than ayudervic (I think I made that word up) but does leave you feeling pretty wholesome afterwards.  (p.s there are no happy ending, despite what people say. At least in the places where I have gone.)

Tomorrow I may do a Thai cooking course which will be brilliant as I love the food out here so much.

Bangkok Part I

I arrived in Bangkok on Friday to meet a friend who works out here.  I've been to Bangkok before - it's obviously  the first stop for the (seemingly) millions of travellers who head to Thailand each year - which is both a good and a bad thing.  Good in the sense that the city has a real buzz.  Bad in the sense that there are a lot of people who wouldn't look out of place in Tenerife.   

Having said that, I was very much one of the latter last time I came so I decided to try and live life like a Bangkok resident.  Well, it kinda worked.   What I hadn't appreciated is that there's a sizeable and young ex pat community in Bangkok.  Most of whom work as journalists, in NGOs or in development organisations.  And many of whom wouldn't look out of place in an east London bar.

The expat and I

All in all they were very nice and over the past few days we went to some of the ex pat hangouts - tucked away usually down side streets off Bangkok's main roads.   The word “super” is a staple part of the Bangkok expat’s vocabulary – think “come for 9pm – it’s super casual”, or it’s “super hot”.

WTF bar, which was on the night celebrating its 1st birthday had a great mix of people, and of cocktails and a great vibe.  

WTF Bar

Bar 23  (so called as it was Soi 23 street - but has now moved) was packed on account of two of the expat's birthday's being held there.

I also had the fortune of going to the "California WOW" gym based in the Siam Paragon centre in the heart of Bangkok.  It promised me the ability to "move like liquid".   I did not.  More like custard. For Bangkok, this was a crazy expensive gym and I was the only “Farang” (foreigner) there.  Perhaps they charged me the Farang price.  Dang.

This morning it rained like hell – for the meteorological minded among you – I have a “really interesting” video of the rain.  Mail me if you want to see it :$.

California WOW

I also learned that taking a taxi rather than the fun tuk tuks is much cheaper and much more enjoyable – all the taxis have an air conditioning system – all the tuks tuks have Bangkok smog.

Tuk Tuk

Next stop, an island in the south – haven’t decided yet, but will do soon.