Bankok- Part II

After leaving Guangzhou, Shane, Suekoilya and I embarked on a late night flight to cross over into Thailand. OH, that first blast of warm air was wondrous! (Even though it was 2:30 am in a foreign country in which we didn't speak the language). We learned quickly that if someone is TOO eager to give you a ride, they are planning to rip you off big time. A guy followed us through the whole airport, first trying to sweet talk and then angrily yelling that his price was reasonable. Finally we found one lone metered taxi out of the airport and found our hostel (which was quite nice, btw).

Yay-authentic Pad Thai! And actually affordable too-40 thai bhat or roughly 7 rmb. (Which is pretty standard for our lunch/dinner price). We found that at each new location, the prices went up. (For you rich Americans, thats about one dollar.

Here is the "black buddha". When we inquired why he was, in fact, gold-looking, the temple worker explained that people buy small, real gold sticker-like things to stick on the buddha in an area they are having trouble or pain. This is how they ask him to heal them in that area. If you look carefully, you will see his skin is not smooth. Notice the entire buddha is now covered many times over in gold. Thats a lot of people...
We went on a personal book tour of Bankok to see some more of the reality- where the people live who aren't living in the high rises.

Suekoilya and I on our boat tour. It is the beginning of february and we are quite warm and content, even with the breeze of the water, in our t-shirts.

Of course, the infamous Tuk-Tuk ride. We always took a Tuk-tuk because they were generally cheaper and a perfect size for 3 people to squeeze into. It would have been slightly terrifying, had we not already been living in China.