Greetings from Thailand!

Right, sorry its been a while since I've updated this. Its been an absolute whirlwind the last two weeks here in Thailand. I arrived in Bangkok after 27 hours of travelling. Had a 9 hour stop in Dubai which was pretty good. The Dubai airport is really beautiful and something different. Marble floors everywhere, immaculately clean and top notch service everywhere you go. Got to Bangkok after a long flight and felt like I'd stepped into an oven when I got there! I got to customs at about 6:30 at night and it was still about +32 at night. The cab ride to my hostel was a total white knuckle ride. Pretty much in Thailand, if there's space on the road, you drive. Lanes painted on the high way are null and void and speed limits are a casual suggestion. After a 140 km/hour cab ride to the hostel, the cab driver tried to drop me off at the W Hotel in downtown Bangkok rather than my hostel. No way in hell I could afford a $200/night hotel! Got to my hostel and slept from 10 at night til 4:30 the next afternoon. I only woke up because there was a really nice British girl in my dorm, Rachel, who kept checking on me every few hours. When she woke me up, she was super relieved. She didn't know I'd been travelling for so long and was as jet lagged as I was. She thought I'd been drugged and had overdosed in my dorm bed!! I got really lucky and went to the Sky Bar with Rachel and her friends. Same place where they filmed "The Hangover 2". Let's just say a bottle of water cost me $10 US. Unless you go with a sugar daddy, there's no way you can personally afford to drink there!

I met some absolutely amazing travelers since I've been in Thailand. Lots of Germans, Aussies and Brits. Such a stellar bunch of people to know. Best part about it all is when people travel, there's next to no judgement. Everyone take care of another because you understand one another's situation. Spent some time with people and went to Koh Sahn Road in Bangkok which is the main tourist drag. The only way I can accurately describe it is Adult Disney World. Dirty as hell and super seedy haha. You can buy everything on Koh Sahn from lap dances to brass knuckles to souvenir t-shirts! The bars are jam packed all the time. We did Thai Buckets which have half a mickey of Thai whiskey, and 6 more shots of rum and cointreau. They're easily shared with 2 other people. Getting on a 2 hour bus ride the next day in blistering heat was not the most fun I've ever had. The temple ruins were absolutely beautiful. They're UNESCO protected sights and so nicely preserved. That day though the mercury hit a whopping +45 and I felt so sick. Really made me miss the snow and cold temperatures from back home. I was in Bangkok for a total of 8 days which in my opinion is about 7 and a half days too many. There are lots of great places to go and things to see in Bangkok but it just starts to wear you out the longer you stay. It's just non stop in Bangkok 24/7 between the night markets, strip clubs, bars and souvenir vendors. And that's even before the traffic which is perma-congested. I got the treat of taking a tuk tuk ride through the downtown in rush hour with 4 other people. These tuk tuks are only meant to hold about 2 ordinary sized people or one really fat white man that is prowling Bangkok for an underage teenage girlfriend. We somehow fit 5 of us in one of these. I sat on the metal floor, right above the exhaust. Felt like my shorts were gonna start on fire after the 20 minute ride! Just learned over time that everything, for better or for worse, is an experience.

I've just come back from northern Thailand in Chaing Mai and Pai. Just getting out of Bangkok was a treat! Chaing Mai is nice but Pai is a slice of paradise. It's a small town of less than one square kilometer. It's a nice mix of locals and then a lot of hippies and wandering 20-somethings looking for life's answers. It's the kind of place where you order lunch at a little cafe and it takes 30 minutes for a simple toast and tea. But it's so relaxed with the incense and "laissez-faire" attitude that you talk to the other travelers and 3 hours pass by in the blink of an eye. The bungalow we stayed at was so nice. Hammocks on the porch and two bathrooms in the bungalow. Oh, and geckos that do their mating calls in the bathroom when you're in the middle of showering! Best part, only $6.50 a night which includes breakfast the next morning and a little wading pool where you can cool your feet off. Now it's back to Bangkok for 2-3 days until I figure off where to go in the south for some fun in the sun!