Age of Aquarius

So as I'm sure everyone knows by now we have arrived in Thailand and it is GLORIOUS! Bangkok is such a busy city, the main motive of transportation is by tuk-tuk, which is an open air taxi for two attached to a moped, they weave in and out of traffic like they are playing a race car video game.

Every tuk-tuk fortunately comes equipped with OH SHIT handles for the nervous passenger to place their strung out white knuckles through and hold on for dear life. The tuk-tuk's split you out at your quasi-suggested destination after some haggling for the price of fare and you are on your way as soon as you get over the motion sickness and regain your land legs, even though you were technically on land the whole time. Some are pimped out burning man style with plush colorful seats, shag carpet ceilings, and Christmas lights.

Bangkok is a city I both love and hate. It is filled with amazing and delicious food sold on the street for 30 baht (which is less than $1 American), and beautiful bedazzled golden temples which smell of incense, but it also is polluted beyond anything I could have imagined. The city is so smog filled that a dense grey cloud hugs the skyscrapers like a long forgotten lover who will not release her hold. This haze is so thick that even the light from the sun appears muted making it difficult to find your shadow. So that is the Bangkok atmospheric update. On the other hand though, everything is AMAZINGLY cheap and wonderful, from food to clothes to massages (which I have gotten 2 of already). Thus my love and hate relationship resumes its quarrel.

The first day we arrived in Bangkok we were toted around via tuk-tuk to some of the sights, which included the most amazing 100 foot golden Buddha

Standing at his feet was like placing a barbie at my own feet. My hand looked small in comparison to his baby toenail. Unreal! Liz and I made an offering to the Buddha by buying some flowers resembling miniature tuba rose lei's, taking off our slippers, kneeling down with our feet under our bootys and placing the flowers on one of his gigantic toes, then we touched our foreheads to his toenails, said a little prayer, and came back up with foreheads covered in gold flakes and oil. We just felt it was the right thing to do.

We have since left Bangkok and traveled North today to the smaller and more lung friendly city of Kanchanaburi. We rented bikes and toured the city during the afternoon, then got massages and drank beer and ate phai thai, yup, we are living the life.

So I know this is a rushed and VERY abreviated version of all the events of my life during the past week, but it is just too much to report upon without 1, oring you with every backstory and detail, and 2. Wasting hours of my life in front of the computer scren when I could be getting a massage for under $5 US on the beach. So I will say this about Australia, It was a very different traveling experience, some good and some bad, but overall different from Argentina because of the way people traveled. It seemed that people woul hunker down in one spot for months at a time and find jobs instead of traveling around to different cities. That is a note on the travels. The Aussies were cheeky and funny andf loved to abreviate EVERYTHING> Thus Breakfast became Brekkie, lollipops = lollies, gossip = goss, cup of tea = cuppa, etc. Which was a funny little vernacular to fall into. I loved it though. So now I am in Thailand which is completely different in terms of economy, climate, and culture. It is strange to be traveling where a French tourist and Thai local communicate in English. It just reaffirms the power that I have been slowly coming to realize I posses simply by my cultural status.

Something that I absolutely am peeing my little pantyhose over though is that Charles will be here in T-23 days!!! w00t w00t!! I think he might be a little surprised by my new traveler status, as I have ditched all my normal clothes for stuff I bought at the Thai markets which include various colors of comfy yoga pants, silk scarves and head bands, some red hair dye, black henna, and hippied out t-shirts. I consider this another cultural assimilation.