Part 1: Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok, Thailand

Starting out with 3 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, 1 jacket, a few odds and ends, and two months of traveling ahead of me, I arrived in Bangkok on January 2nd not really knowing what I had gotten myself into but knowing the next two months were sure to be an adventure.

At 2AM, the streets were clear enough for taxis to easily make their way through the city; in fact, taxis were the only cars on the road.

After only a few hours of sleep, I woke to meet 4 of the 5 other girls I was sharing a hostel dorm room with: Two 18-year-old British girls, Harri and Brit, who had set out on a 7 month journey, a 32-year-old German woman named Frieda, and a 27-year-old Korean American woman named Victoria. We spent the day together. The Sky Train conveniently took us to a boat taxi that would then take us to the Old City. Within the Old City, we visited the Grand Palace which contained the Emerald Buddha and a museum and then headed to Wat Pho which housed the largest reclining Buddha. The two places took the entire day of exploring. When we returned to the hostel, I met a 40-year-old woman named Michelle from LA. She talked me into going to see a Lady Boys Cabaret with her; it was an INCREDIBLE show! Lady boys are an entire culture of men who dress like and/or become women. A funny story about these beautiful lady boys: After the show, they descended the staircase before the audience in order to clap for us as we came down the stairs. Michelle and I had our picture taken with a few of these gorgeous women, and then of course, they asked for a tip. Michelle, having just come from Vietnam a few days earlier where 1000s of Dong equal only a few dollars, gave the women what they asked for...1000 Baht. As I pulled her away from the greedy lady boys, I explained that she had just given them a $40 tip. In between Michelle's bits of cursing, we laughed all the way back to the hostel.

The next day, I went on a tour to Kachanaburi, a province outside of Bangkok, with Michelle and Jane, an Irish woman from my dorm room. We visited the war cemetery that was constructed for those who died during the forced building of the Death Railway between Burma and Thailand during WWII by the Japanese military. 90,000 Asian workers and 16,000 POWs died during the bridge's construction. We took a boat ride down the River Kwai and under the reconstructed bridge. The original wooden "Bridge over the River Kwai" remains partially in the JEATH War Museum (JEATH = Japanese, English, Australian, Thai, and Holland: The 5 main nationalities involved in the construction of the bridge). After leaving the museum, we hopped on some elephants for a ride through the jungle which ended up being sadder than I thought. Our mahout (elephant trainer) didn't treat our elephant very nicely. The mahouts aren't all like that. Finally, the tigers at the Tiger Temple were definitely one of the highlights of the day. They were so precious; we spent an hour or two getting our pictures taken with the them. The tigers are taken care of by volunteers and monks. That night, we ate at a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms. A portion of the money spent on dinner goes toward AIDS education and research. We got condoms instead of dinner mints! Haha!

The next day I spent the day at an amazingly overcrowded weekend market with THOUSANDS of stalls. It was quite the sight and experience. I had to take a breather, so I hung out by a pond the rest of the afternoon until I had to make my way to the airport to fly out to Israel/Palestine...

...to be continued. :)