Bangkok, Thailand (December 22-24)

View of Bangkok from James' friend's mother's apartment.

From Taipei, we flew to Bangkok, Thailand.

From the very beginning, I knew Thailand was going to be a bit of a pain. I read all the stories online of people getting scammed and ripped off and just generally hassled by people everywhere, and all the stories are basically true. We had just gotten off the plane, exchanged money, and were trying to find a map of the city and figure out how to get to the hostel. Maps of the city should be fairly easy to come by in an airport. One would think.

The problem with the Bangkok airport is that there are tourist information booths, and then there are the REAL tourist information booths. It's very easy to tell which is which. If you walk anywhere in the vicinity of a tourist information booth, a random man will approach you and say "Where you go? You need taxi?"

Then you say: "No, but can I have a map please?"

They say: "Where you go? Which hotel?"

You: "I just want a map."

Them: "I know you want map. You need hotel? I get you good hotel."

You: "Map."

They hand you a map, but it's only a map of the monorail that goes about halfway to where you need to go.

You: "Do you have a regular map?"

Them: "Where you go?"

Your boyfriend: "We're staying with friends."

Them: *walks away and doesn't speak to you anymore*

However, if you go to a REAL tourist information booth, they wait for you to come to them, and when you say, "May I have a map please?" they hand you one, and when you say, "How do we get to BlahBlahBlah part of town?" they draw a picture for you on your map, and point you towards the train that will take you there. Thank you REAL tourist info for being so helpful.

We finally got on the monorail that took us closest to the hostel. I stepped off the train, and I was so excited to be WARM! It was around 80 degrees F, I think. We tried to figure out where we were in relation to the hostel, but eventually just gave up and took a cab. On the cab ride, I realized how much Thai people LOVE 7-eleven. At one point, I could see three of them on one block. The cab ride was actually really interesting. At one point, we drove through an intersection where all the streets were lit up with Christmas lights (but not for Christmas), and there were pictures of the King of Thailand everywhere.

The King of Thailand

This guy is everywhere. I think right now, he is sick, so there are extra pictures and light displays devoted to him.

The next day, I wanted to go see the Golden Palace and other famous Thai things.

We discovered that our hostel was within walking distance from the palace and temples. We walked by Khao San Road, which is a famous road that a lot of foreigners go to when they visit Bangkok. A lot of shops and food and hostels and things. As we were walking, we hit a big intersection that was kind of confusing. We knew what we wanted was on the other side, but it was difficult to see exactly where to cross so that we could get there.

This thing was in the middle of the intersection.

We kept getting harassed by taxi drivers, several of whom told us the temples were closed until later that day. This happens to be one of the most popular scams in Thailand, and there are warnings about it all over the internet. Their aim is to get you to change your mind and go somewhere farther away, probably to a place that they get paid to bring people to. Someone should probably tell them that the internet has made sure that the majority of foreigners are not going to believe anything they say.

We finally found where to cross, and started walking down a long, wide sidewalk in front of some important looking building. There was one spot on the sidewalk where there were a bunch of pigeons, and some people feeding them. I do not like birds in such large numbers. Japan has kind of made me afraid of pigeons, because they get used to people and enjoy flying dangerously close to your head. My aim was to walk through the birds as quickly as possible, but this was not to be.

The people who were feeding the birds all of a sudden attached themselves to me and James. They were being all excited about the bags of corn they were holding, saying, "Good luck for New Year!!!" over and over. I kept saying no, but they wouldn't leave me alone, and as I tried to keep walking, the guy closest to me grabbed my hand and put a bag of corn in it, then, while still holding my hand, opened the bag and tipped my hand over.

He had forced me to feed those stupid birds. Now they were coming near me and making me nervous, and he kept putting more bags of corn in my hand. I was able to drop one, and I tried to walk away, but he got me again and had opened it and handed it to me upside down, so when he let go of it, all the corn spilled. After accidentally through no fault of my own feeding the birds 3 times, the guy all of a sudden started demanding money. He got angry, too, like someone flicked a switch. I kept saying I didn't want to pay, I had said no and I don't like birds so I never wanted the corn, but he kept demanding. James had paid the ladies that were hounding him, so they came over to me, and I was surrounded by 4 very short, very ugly, very angry scammers who wanted money. I tried to say that James had already paid for me, but they didn't buy it. They were asking me for 100 baht (a little more than $3), which is a lot in Thai money. James told me to give them the smallest bill I had, which turned out to be 20 baht (about 60 cents). They were mad they didn't get more, I think, but at least they left me alone.

I was really angry after that, because even though, to me, it was barely any money, I was mad that I knew what they were doing, but was unable to get away. It was just so rude and so mean, and very frustrating.

We got to where the temples where, and there was a random man that was trying to tell us something about bowing or whatever, and he was genuinely trying to be helpful I think, but after those jerks with the birds, I just wanted people to leave me alone. Across the street from the temples was a sandwich place, Au Bon Pain, and we decided to go in there for lunch to escape the scammers and the heat. The front of the store was mobbed with people selling things, showing me fabric, umbrellas, fans, and all kinds of things I didn't want. Once we were inside, *sigh* paradise. It was the first time I had felt air conditioning all day, and it was glorious. I had a chicken salsa wrap and strawberry smoothie, both of which were amazing, and we took our time relaxing in a place where no one would offer a taxi, and the price on the menu is what you paid.

After a nice leisurely lunch, we were ready to go back to reality, and enter the temple grounds, which by the way, Mr. Taxi Driver, were open.

When you go to the palace, you're supposed to cover your shoulders and not wear shorts or skirts or super short or tight anything. Because it's Thailand and it's hot, they have rental clothes on hand for those that want to visit the palace and temples, but don't want to walk around all day in long sleeves and long pants.

Fabulous, no?

Who knows how many people have worn them, and when the last time was that they were washed. Ew. I wore a long dress and brought a shirt to cover my shoulders, but James had to wear the rental pants.

When we first walked in, this is the guy that greeted us:

He's actually a giant, and comes from a Thai story that's roughly about a giant and a monkey, and one of them stole the other one's wife.

Since I live in Japan, I've seen a lot of temples. One would say I'm "templed out". It was really awesome to see the Thai ones, though, because they are so different from Japanese temples. The one thing that the Thai people really excel on is BLING.

There are very few places on these buildings that don't sparkle. Everything is gold and jewel tones, and they use mirrored tiles to make the mosaics on the buildings.

Look at the sunlight reflecting of that roof (@.@)

We went to see the Emerald Buddha, and you're not allowed to take pictures inside, but I was able to sneak this one through the doorway.

It's a little difficult to see from the quality of the picture, but this guy is blingin'.

Picture inside another temple that shows a little bit better how elaborate they are.

This is another building that was in the grounds. I saw a similar one on a small island in Japan. It's built to house relics of Buddha.

This building wasn't as sparkly, but it was just as beautiful, because it was covered with colored tiles in a floral design. In the front are some cool phoenix-looking guys guarding the entrance.

Close up of the tiles on the "plain" building.

This is a model of Angkor Wat, the famous temple in Cambodia. Thailand and Cambodia have a bit of a rivalry, and I think this is part of that rivalry.

This is the palace for the King. While we were there, a bunch of school children were on a field trip. All of the girls had the exact same haircut.

Some Dr. Seuss trees near the palace.

After the palace and the Emerald Buddha, we went to another nearby temple to see the Reclining Buddha. This pose is representative of him being about to die. A street vendor later told us that he doesn't like the Reclining Buddha because he looks lazy, and he wants to see Buddha do more interesting things.

Buddha from the front.

Full length view of Reclining Buddha.

The bottom of Buddha's feet, inlaid with mother of pearl.

After hanging out in the hot sun all day, we wanted to go somewhere to look for dinner. I had read online that the food courts of malls are good places to get food that is cheap, delicious, and won't kill you. We were closest to a mall called MBK, which is one of the more famous shopping centers in Bangkok. It used to be a good place to buy knock-off goods, but Thailand has recently been cracking down on that kind of activity, so now it's a legitimate mall.

We looked around the mall for awhile, and then headed upstairs to the international food court. It was amazing. Food from EVERYWHERE. They give you a card when you go in, and you buy whatever you want and they put it on the card, and you pay for it all on the way out. It took me about 30 minutes of wandering around to decide what to get. I ended up getting some spicy soup with shrimp. James had something Greek (gyro, maybe) that came with the most delicious french fries ever. While we were eating, there happened to be a performance of traditional Thai dance. They performed the giant/monkey/wife stealing story, as well as another dance with girls who dance with feathery fans.

While we were at MBK, we were able to buy tickets to something else I really wanted to do while I was in Thailand: a Ladyboy Show!

This is a man.

And so are these.

Thailand has this whole part of their culture where they're apparently completely okay with cross dressing. You see Ladyboys on the street all the time, and sometimes it's really hard to tell that they're not women, because they're so beautiful. The only reason you notice is usually because you're in Thailand so you're looking for them.

So we watched the show. They did a variety of songs in different languages, even English and Japanese. There was one older man whose performances were meant to be comedy: he was running into walls and at one point the music stopped and it was just him singing in a manly voice. Very silly, and I enjoyed it very much.

Afterwards, we were able to take pictures with the performers.

This is the only picture I have with them where they only make me look a little frumpy (as opposed to completely frumpy).

The next day, we went back to MBK. There is a building nearby the mall that is a cultural center and has some free art exhibits. The regular exhibits were mostly made up of children in special art programs, and were really cute. They did have one special photography exhibit, created by the Princess of Thailand. It was meant to be about the empowerment of women, I think but ultimately it was more or less a cliche group of photographs of women in their underwear.

Beautiful photos, though.

The best part of MBK was a food store on the bottom floor. They had sourdough rolls, which I have not seen in a LONG time, so of course I had to buy one. I also found some garlic and herb camembert cheese that turned out to be amazingly delicious on my sourdough roll. I think I had a salad as well, but the bread and cheese really stole the show of that lunch.

Later, we were picked up by the driver of the family of one of James' friends from Vancouver. We went to their beautiful apartment that overlooks the city, and then they took us to another market (more for locals) and for an early dinner. At the market, James' friend's mom bought us a couple traditional Thai snacks. One looked like a taco, but was kind of like a crunchy crepe with this coconut filling inside. It was very sweet. The other thing she bought looked like tarts, but they were made from egg and rice flour, and had different toppings, like corn and sesame, and some other things I didn't recognize.

For dinner, we had Pad Thai and eggrolls, and I had Thai iced tea, which is an opaque terra cotta color, is extremely sweet, and is flavored with different spices and milk.

After dinner, we got a ride to the bus station to catch the overnight bus to our next destination: Koh Phangan.

Killing time at the bus station.

Taipei! (December 21-22)

First stop was Taipei. We weren't originally supposed to go to Taiwan, but it turns out it's very expensive to fly out of Japan, and Taiwan was a cheap jumping off point to the rest of Asia.

I tried very hard to do everything ahead of time, but inevitably I was packing on the morning of the flight. Actually, I had to run to Sannomiya to buy the bag that I was packing everything IN the morning of the flight. It's an awesome backpack with lots of pockets and cool things for traveling. I met James at a coffee shop, and then we were off to the airport bus.

The unfortunate thing about taking a bus to the airport, is that sometimes there is traffic. And sometimes, you get on the bus that already takes an extra 15 minutes or so because it has to make a detour to pick up people on a nearby island. And sometimes, you have just come from a coffee shop and didn't think to "go" before you got on this bus that's about to hit traffic on top of the extra 15 minutes. This was one painful bus ride. About an hour into it, I decided I couldn't take it anymore, and James had to run up to the bus driver and beg him to make a bathroom stop. It's quite embarassing being the only one jumping off at an unplanned bathroom stop, cuz everyone knows it's your fault that it's going to take even longer to get to the airport. But we got there.

So blah, blah, customs, security, airplane, 3 hours, Taipei.

We got to Taipei and headed for the hostel. I think we took another bus. We couldn't understand the airport bus driver as he was yelling out the names of the stops, so we just kind of assumed we'd somehow end up at the correct place. As luck would have it, our stop was the very last stop on the line. We didn't realize the bus had stopped for good, so we sat there like dumb foreigners for a moment until the bus driver yelled at us. We stood at the train station for a minute and decided the easiest thing would be to take a taxi the rest of the way. So we did. We stayed at a hostel called The Meeting Place, which is sort of a misnomer in that it's kind of difficult to find and there's not much going on around it, but the inside was beautiful. They had a huge open area with comfy couches and a large projector screen for movies, also a kitchen area and a bunch of tables for eating or skyping or whatever. I guess people are supposed to meet on the inside, not the outside :) The people who worked there were incredibly nice. We got in kind of late - around 10 or 11 pm - and I didn't even have to ask before the guy gave me directions to the nearest night market to get some food.

This is where we went.

The night market was a fairly short walk from the hostel. There are about a billion night markets in Taiwan, and they basically consist of a bunch of food stalls and little shops selling clothes, toys, souvenirs, and pretty much anything. At first, I was a little paranoid about walking around, as I had been reading entirely too much about southeast Asia and it's pickpockets and whatnot, but it turns out that Taipei is a really safe place. Not quite Japan, but not anywhere near as sketch as other countries can be. After spending some time at the night market, we realized the people of Taipei are REALLY nice. We had had a lot of trouble in China with people being pushy and rude and not leaving you alone when you are shopping, but in the market, I nearly fell over from shock when someone approached me about buying earrings and I said "no thank you" and she just walked away. Amazing.

I ate some candied strawberries and a hotdog on a stick that was covered in potato and then deep fried. You can choose whatever sauce you want with it, and I got it with some kind of honey mustard-ish sauce. There was some other food I kind of wanted, but I was a bit overwhelmed with everything, so couldn't really decide. James got some guava, and it was really good. I also bought an awesome belt, but forgot about the whole bartering thing and, while I got the price down a little, I totally paid too much. But by paid too much, I mean I got it for less than $10, so I wasn't too worried about it.

We finally headed back to the hostel, stopping along the way at a 7-eleven for a bit more food. The guy at the hostel gave me a look for eating 7-eleven noodles instead of the noodles at the night market, but I didn't care, I was tired. We asked him about things to do for the next day, and he recommended going to this famous museum, but it turns out we would have to wake up early to go there, since it was about an hour away by train/bus, and it's a large museum. We decided to sleep in instead (it's vacation, after all), and went to Taipei Main Station to have a look around before we had to head to the airport again. I bought an onion pancake from a street vendor guy, and we had an amazing lunch at a pizza place called Alley Cats. We didn't really do anything particularly exciting, just wandered, and then we found the bus back to the airport. We were coming back to Taipei at the end of our trip for a longer period of time, so we figured we'd do our sightseeing then.

Cool building next to the night market. I think it's a museum/temple thing.

Onward to Thailand!

The Epic Journey: 5 Countries in 3 Weeks

For the past 3 weeks, I have been on planes, trains, boats, tuk-tuks, and automobiles, finally experiencing the result of 6 months of planning. I traveled to a total of 5 different countries: Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Cambodia. I had Christmas on the beach, New Years under the Petronas Towers, imitated Angelina Jolie at Angkor Wat, and made a total fattie of myself everywhere. Without a doubt, as silly as it sounds, my favorite part of my trip would have to be the food. Not only was I pleasantly surprised by an abundance of my Western favorites (Chilis, California Pizza Kitchen, and TGIFridays, oh my), but southeast Asia happens to have some absolutely amazing food, and I was there to eat it.

I'm going to split up the tale of my trip- one blog entry per country -to make it easier to read and easier to write.

First, Taiwan........

Happy New Year!

It. Is. Cold.

This morning, Tomogaoka had their opening ceremony to start the 3rd term of the school year. They didn't bother to use any space heaters because the ceremony was supposed to be very short and we didn't need them. When we finally left the assembly, I couldn't feel any of my toes or fingers. :(

This cold weather comes as a bit of a shock for me, because I have spent the last 3 weeks in Southeast Asia (multiple entries about my trip to follow! :) ), where the temperature during the day is over 80 degrees. Being warm in December is amazing.