Possible scam and hour-long massages

After another cool shower this morning, Tracy and I went with Jen and Iain to the massive “computer mall”. While Tracy and I hung out in the food court, we received a phone call on our temporary cell phone from an unknown number.

Now, I really don’t want to get into too much detail, but basically the night before we met a Scot named Mark, who was on a year-long honeymoon with his wife, Claire. They had recently visited Laos and had a ton of currency left over, which cannot be exchanged outside of the border. We told him to give us a day so that we could check out the conversion ourselves (we’re not TRYING to get scammed, after all).

So we received the call, told him where we were at, and it turned out he was in the same building (roughly a 20 minute cab ride away from where we had met him the night before). We had one moment of “wait, did he follow us here? Is this how Brokedown Palace started?” but then told him to come find us in the food court. He ended up exchanging it to us for roughly half its value, then proceeded to hang out with us for the next half an hour and give us tons of good information regarding places to go and things to see.

So after leaving the mall, Tracy and I went back to take a riverboat tour. We can finally add pictures! Here's the boat Tracy and I had to ourselves (apparently, sponsored by Pepsi!) :






Here's a shot of a floating market woman:




We had decided not to buy anything from the woman until she asked us if we wanted to buy a beer for our boat driver. Well, you can’t turn down an offer like that, and you can’t let your driver drink alone (poor alcoholic driver, toasting us in the shot below) so we bought two for ourselves as well.

After this clearly exhausting day, we needed to relax, so we had an hour long traditional Thai massage for roughly $5 US. That will definitely become a more regular part of our trip.

First possible scam and hour long massages

The second full day in Bangkok started with another cool shower and some shopping. Tracy and I followed Iain and Jen to this massive computer store (by "computer store" I mean "they sell everything, but they also sell computer stuff in a really pushy and in-your-face way"). Tracy and I finally found new ripoff sunglasses, then while Iain and Jen shopped we hung out in the food court. We received a phone call on the phone Iain lent us from an unknown number. Now, I don't want to get into too much detail here, but it was this guy Mark we had met the night before, a Scottish guy on his year-long honeymoon trek with his wife, Claire. Basically, he had a bunch of Laos money (currency exchange: $1 American equals approximately 9500 Lao kip) that outside of Laos becomes completely worthless, so Tracy and I purchased it off of him for approximately half of its value, which was nothing and will (again, if this is legit) allow us to live like absolute kings while in Laos (typical cost per day for average living, including accomodation: $8-$15 US).



The funniest part, however, was when we received this call- we told the guy to give us 24 hours to make up our minds so we could check out the conversion and make sure we were getting a good deal and his story checked out- we were sitting in the food court of this computer mall. When we told him where we were, it turned out he was just downstairs- and this place was a good 20 minute cab ride away from where we had met him the night before, at our hostel the night before. So after a quick "wait, did he follow us here? Is this how Brokedown Palace started?" we told him to come up and meet us. We ended up having an absolutely fantastic half-hour conversation with him- he and his wife were heading to Australia then New Zealand next, so we were able to pass on recommendations we heard and we exchanged email addresses to get any recommendations from him regarding New Zealand if he's there before us.



Afterwards, Tracy and I decided to do our first thing alone on this trip, which was to take a tuk-tuk back to our hostel. Of course, our first time doing something without Iain, and the guy doesn't know how to get our tuk-tuk to our door. He ended up dropping us off at the end of an alley and pointing down it. Luckily, we found our way back and didn't end up sleeping in a ditch.





Okay, stupid blogger and stupid computer and stupid blah blah blah...it's not allowing me to post any pictures to the site. I'm just going to tell stories for now and hopefully we can add the pictures later, sorry about that. I know you'd love to see how we're still glaringly, pasty white, but it'll have to wait another day.



After our trip back to the hostel, Tracy and I took a quick walk to the river for a riverboat tour. Pretty sure we technically got ripped off, but I don't even care, because I loved it so much. Now this, we have a million pictures from that I'd love to share, but stupid blogger...the conditions some of these people live in is unbelievable. They're literally shacks barely hanging over the river by some wobbly wooden poles, and I'm not quite sure how they haven't already collapsed, but it was also strangely beautiful. We also got to see a mini version of the "floating market"- women in their little boats, floating up to our boat, to sell us stuff. We did say no, all until she pointed at the beer and asked if we wanted to buy one for the driver. Well, we can't turn down an offer like that, and we certainly couldn't let our driver drink alone (poor alcoholic driver) so we both got beers for ourselves, as well. We also paid to feed some crazy-ass fish, which apparently gave Tracy flashbacks to Smith Mountain Lake. Not a lot of similarities between Thailand and Virginia, but apparently Tracy found their common ground.



After our clearly very stressful day, we needed to relax, so we got traditional Thai massages for an hour (roughly $5). That will definitely have to become a more regular part of our trip.



After that, we were like two floppy dolls, so instead of another night out in Bangkok, we grabbed a night bus back to Chanthaburi, to spend the day here with Iain and Jen before we leave them for the next 2 1/2 weeks. We're going to attempt to drive their motorcycles or

Bangkok

After leaving Bangkok for Iain's on Wednesday when we flew in, we turned around and came back on Thursday night in order to meet Iain and Jen's students for a field trip on Friday. We took a bus, about 3.5 hours, air conditioned and pretty comfortable.

We had to stop at several hostels before finding one with rooms available and that weren't directly opposite the toilets and/ or smelled of mold. We are right off Kao San road at a hostel called "My House". It is not what you would call luxury. There is no hot water and no electrical outlets, shared bathrooms, no sheets, and one towel. Believe it or not we are loving every minute of it. The place is filled with backpackers from all over the world, its amazing.

Thursday night we walked Kao San road which is famous for its vendors selling everything from watches to crickets. I got both. Katie and I went to a bar filled with farangs (foreigners) and drank Thai Rum by the bucket. Incidentally two bucket drinks is the same price as our hostel for a night, roughly $8.

Iain came by with a bag of fried crickets which after some coercion I tried one (Katie ate them happily along with several grub worms). The taste wasn't so bad, it was only when the leg got caught in my throat that I nearly gagged. Iain said I didn't chew enough. I think I will be sticking to eating rice.
Friday morning early we met up with the school children at the Kings temple, Wat Prakeow. Because the Kings sister died recently everyone was dressed in black. I specifically wore long shorts to my knees because I knew our knees had to be covered in addition to wearing all black. At the gate I was told I was dressed inappropriately. Katie gave me a black pashmina I wrapped around my waist as a skirt which worked perfectly although made me feel about eleventy billion degrees hotter.

The temple was amazing, we lined up with all of Iains students and waited to get in to pay our respects to the deceased sister. Everyone assumed Katie and I were teachers which worked out well because we were ushered in for free and got to participate in the memorial service. There were some famous Thai movie stars ( I couldn't tell you who) but the students absolutely freaked out when they passed us. Iain and Jen were interviewed by Thai Channel 3 News several times. We got a call from his friend in Chantaburi later in the day saying we were all on TV more than a few times! After the temple we headed with the students to the Suan Lum Bazaar in Pathumwan (still in Bangkok) and went to a traditional Thai puppet theatre. These puppets are famous and one of a kind. Three traditional Khon dancers hold each puppet in the air and dance and act out the stories, it was very cool. This particular story had a white monkey called Hanuman as its hero. At the end of the performance the dancers brought the puppets into the audience and played with the children who were absolutely having a ball. When they moved around to us the monkey snuggled up to Jen and kept kissing her, then all of a sudden he grabbed her purse and ran on stage while everyone roared. Jen was shy, but finally went on stage to retrieve her bag. They later asked all of the teachers on stage to take pictures, including Katie and I!
Your average traveller would not have been able to do the things we did yesterday, it was unbelievable and thanks to Iain and Jen we get to experience such things.

We are staying in Bangkok until Sunday and are trying now to get Visas to visit Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Its a very tall order and we only have 10 days to do it being that we want to spend the end of our trip relaxing on the beach at Koh-Chang.

Some interesting points:

-Thai people have trouble pronouncing my name, Katie comes out fine, like Kaydee. Mine comes out more like Crazzy, which Iain finds very amusing.

-Thai people use no toilet paper, there is usually a water hose for washing yourself. We still cannot figure out how they go about drying themselves. I imagine all Thai's just walk around with wet asses.
-Posted by Tracy

Our new home

Tracy and I are officially in Thailand- after 19 hours of flying (and approximately 8 sleeping pills and a Xanax) , we landed in Bangkok where Tracy's brother Iain and his wife Jen picked us up. Tracy did end up sitting next to me the entire time and somehow managed not to tear my arm to shreds when the plane took off.


I've now learned two words in Thai that I remember- farong (foreigner) and of course the all-important dum (drink). Our most valuable new phrase is "dum free"- next week when we're out on Ko Chang we're going to try to befriend a local bartender and offer to teach him English in exchange for as many free drinks as we want. According to Iain this might also signal to him that we're prostitutes, but apparently tank tops, shorts, ankle bracelets do this as well. I just met my first Thai person (he came in to visit Iain) and I'm currently sitting at the computer in a tank top, shorts and an ankle bracelet. Good to know I'm making a good first impression on this country.


Thought I would share our new home in Thailand, the guest house off to the side of Iain and Jen's house- you can see the river through the slats in the floor. The only sounds I could hear when I woke up this morning were birds chirping and the sound of the wind going through the palm trees. It's just awful.


By the way, thanks again everyone who came out Saturday night and Monday night (even though Tracy didn't even make it to Monday- and yes, Lisa, I told her "bye, and fuck you" for you).


Here's our room:

Off the back of the guest house is a porch over the river, and this is our view:

On our way to Bangkok this afternoon, we'll do our best not to get sold into slavery.

Posted by-Katie

1st Day in Thailand

We arrived safely in Bangkok yesterday afternoon. Iain and Jen greeted us at the airport and took us on the 3+ hour drive to their home in Chantaburi.



By the way, Thailand is exactly 12 hours behind the US, so its about midnight (wed) for you guys.



Iain and Jen were kind enough to set up their river house for us, they normally use this as their living/ TV room. Its very nice and even has its own porch looking over the river.



Its pretty chilly here by Thai standards, to them this is freezing winter. Its a comfortable 70 degrees.


Posted by- Katie

good bunnies

Thanks Elaine and Zander for the picture send off!

love, the bunnies

PS people- If you tried to call or text my cell in the last 48 hours you may not have got me, verizon has this awesome policy of suspending service whilst on the phone with them scheduling suspensions. If you called or texted, please email me at tracyeliza@aol.com to reach me from now on!

Posted by- Tracy

Begin the Beguine

We embark on our travels tomorrow early AM. Thank god my father decided to make a visit to Connecticut this weekend to drive us up from VA last Friday and to take us to the airport tomorrow.

Fortunately my parents will be reading this blog, 1) because they are not ministers and 2) because they already know I am a drunk lush and are more worried about me travelling than ever due to the fact that I cannot go one weekend back in NYC without losing my credit card. Thanks again for the going away party on Saturday my friends.

We had a great turn out and thank you to all for wishing us farewell. If you were unable to make it (Megan, Gary, Jacob and Lauren) I hope to see you when we return before our move to the old south.

After a brief layover in London tomorrow we arrive in Bangkok Wed 3:40pm, 3:40am US time. My brother and sister in law will greet us at the airport and take us to a hotel. Then on Friday the entire school my brother and sister in law teach at are due to arrive for a 2 day field trip. We will be visiting the WATS (temples) in Bangkok with a hundred Thai school children, should be very fun and completely crazy.

I hope to post again when we arrive and frequently throughout depending upon where our travels take us.

Wish us good luck (god knows I need it on the flights).

Posted by-Tracy