A big update

Okay, where to begin? Maybe here, with a little something random for Mike and Krista and Steven:

I'm as stumped as you are. I literally could not find out what this sign was for, the bit on the right is for Ryokan, the hostel this sign was placed near to.

Now, a sunburn update: I'm nearly done peeling and the itching has been bad (not a lot of sleep last night), but I'm hoping the worst is over. A couple of pictures:

Tasty.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, this guy in bangkok.

I can't stop giggling when I see him, he's too funny.

Anyway, I'm in Bangkok now, and it's been an eventful 28ish hours since I got here. The train wasn't too bad, took about 24 hours total and went by surprisingly quickly. The only rough part was being seated near a group of middle aged Chinese folks who must have been taking some sort of group trip with their friends. They were loud, and shrill, and not particularly considerate when it came to noise both as people were going to sleep and waking up. One weird thing about Chinese folks: they have no shame when they burp. None. Especially the women. It's not like they let them rip and laugh at it, they just let them rip and everyone carries on as if it's totally normal (which, to them, it obviously is). They all inhale from these little bottles of scented crap that oddly enough seems to make their belches smell delightful, so it's hard to complain, but it's a very odd cultural difference.

Getting to the hostel was cake thanks to the cheap taxi (about 2.50 for a half hour's ride, the cheapness of things is going to be a theme). Hostel I wanted to stay at was full, so they directed me to a cheaper one (5$ dorm!). Once I got settled and such I just walked around for a while getting used to the area, as I usually do. Difference being that the area is basically the backpacker capital of the world: Khao San Road. I'd like to be able to say that it's an awesome place, but it's really just an unholy mix of vendors, guesthouses, ethnic street peddlers, tuk-tuk drivers, people trying to scam you into taking tours, food galore, etc. I had identified a couple of things that I wanted to buy (go go thai fisherman pants!), so I went about getting those. I freaking hate bartering, but it's the only way to not pay double what they're worth. Wandered around some more, took it all in, got some 1$ curry that was very good, and started widening the wandering circle.

I walked along one of the larger streets and I could see some sort of big gathering across at a park. I asked a taxi driver if he knew what was going on. Big mistake. He told me it was just a normal thing, that the park was closed because there were too many people now and asked where I'd like to go. I had forgotten that nobody gives you a correct answer if they've got a service to ply, so once I caught on I just said by and walked over. Now that sounds easy, but I had to cross this 'street' in 5 separate places, across a total of 14 lanes. yes, I counted. Traffic here is just freaking nuts, like a couple of poorly organized 401s run through the city.

Anyway, once I got over there, I saw this:

People were flying these huge kites, and a lot of families were flying smaller ones. Turns out there was an unveiling of sorts of some baby Buddha staues in the area. There was also this awesome balloon that was lit from inside and had an outline of the staue on it that doesn't really show all that well in the picture but looked very cool in person:

All in all it was pretty magical, walking around this huge open park with all these kites playing around you. The actual event bit wasn't that interesting to me, but in the picture above you can see the Grand Palace spires lit up in the background. It was an awesome setting.

As I walked around the park I noticed a different night market close by, so I decided to check it out, and I'm pretty damned glad I did, because it was shopping heaven. Now you're probably surprised to read that since I'm not exactly known for my shopping love or prowess, but this was different. not only was everything insanely cheap, but I'm convinced a great deal of it had come from donations or charity (in other words, they were probably ripping charities off for stuff to sell or buying wholesale from thrift shops - you could tell they were previously worn though, some had very specific stuff on them and some were signed by groups of people, etc - dead giveaway). That goes for everything from clothes (2$ t-shirts? Yes please), to electronics (tons of old cameras and lenses to browse through? Don't mind if I do), to just about anything else you could think of. This place also had people getting tattoos, hair cutting stations, any kind of food you could think of (I bought 5 small donuts for a buck - it took all my willpower not to go back for more after I had already caved the once), etc etc. Way better prices than the backpacker markets, way more variety, and best of all it wasn't the same crap in every stall that I'm now noticing on every single white person I see after only 1 day of being here. Here's the breakdown of what I got:

1 used book

2 x fisherman pants

sunglasses (other ones broke)

a hat (other one was disgusting and had started hurting my head)

over the shoulder bag to use as a food bag

the aforementioned donuts

plate of pad thai with fresh squeezed orange juice

7 shirts, including one button up collared shirt 

And I paid about 40$. And most of that was the fisherman pants and 2 shirts I bought at the overpriced backpacker market. The t-shirts are especially awesome, I even found a Boston Celtics Rasheed Wallace t-shirt and an old Deftones shirt. It took some digging through a lot of crap, but it was worth it. I'm going back tonight for some food tourism. After that I went back tot he dorm and crashed after a solid 4 hours of walking around this massive area, completely sated.

Today I went to Wat Pho, which is where this guy lives:

That is an enormous reclining Buddha. The pose is that in which he supposedly entered the state of Nirvana. It's so big and the room so full of pillars that it was the only decent angle I could get of him. The exterior decoration of the temples in the complex were much more impressive, but sadly one of my camera batteries seems to be dying to I didn't get as many photos as I would have liked. There are more in the Picassa link on the sidebar. 

After that I went back to the hostel to charge up the camera, got some food, and headed back out to go to the National Museum, but it was closed. Bummer. So I tried the Grand Palace but it was so choked with people that I couldn't bear it and decided to take it easy today and go back tomorrow morning at opening. It's funny tough, there are so many monuments and temples and statues and so much ornamentation and gold leaf around that you very quickly become desensitized to it. There are always the same thought when I see these places though: what could have been done with that money elsewhere. It's beautiful and impressive no doubt, but it's just a reminder of how tied to power religion and pageantry are.

A few other random things here: Thai people are obsessed with looking white. There are ads for whitening cream everywhere and people wear that shit all the time. With the heat here, it often looks like you're walking down the street among a crowd of jokers with melting makeup. It's creepy, I promise you that.

There's a huge tattoo culture here. Parlors are everywhere, a lot of Thais have tattoos, and they tend to be of the offensive nature. I saw a girl of not more than 18 in the street market with a tattoo of a naked woman in a garden on her back, exposed with just your average tank top. Just one example, but still not something you see often.

Today I saw a guy chewing tobacco while wearing a pollution face mask, lifting it up every once in a while to spit. Figure that one out.

Also saw the most hilariously casual firemen. They looked very young, like under 20, and they were hanging off the top of a firetruck as it sped through clearing traffic. They were just looking at the crowd passing by, kinda leaning back, one guy was yawning, the other adjusting his junk, looking bored. Was too funny.

That's about it for now. Big sightseeing day tomorrow, so should have lots more pictures soon.