"You can cry if massage hurts" She said to us

Last night we crashed at about 7pm, Jet lag and culture shock will do that to you I suppose. We awoke, showered and got going at around 8. The mornings here are pleasant, its relativity quiet and very few tourist or street venders are out before 10. Our plan was to first find a wifi hotspot to use since it costs 40 baht per hour to use the internet here at the guesthouse. We had seen a starbucks on Khao San Road, so we hit that up first. No luck, we needed to subscribe to a service in order to get it there. At almost any spot in Bangkok wireless is available…for a fee. Later in the day a Thai man named Bee told us that the only things free in Thailand are Smiles, Friendship, Smells and Air. Upon giving up on our search for the wifi (I only pray that we get free internet at the university), we bought breakfast at a street vendor. I had an omelet on rice. Then, from the neighboring street vendor we bought fresh Papaya. Fresh fruit is in abundance here, and is very cheap.

We next decided to try something that Thailand is famous for: Thai Massage. We both ordered half hour massages, and it was an interesting experience. The massage is very much based on applying pressure on different areas of the body. We started laying face down, but during the massage we were moved to face up and sitting positions depending on what part of the body they were working on. At times there was a bit of pain involved also. As she dug her elbow into Steve’s back his masseuse quipped “Thai massage like thai boxing”. I couldn’t help but agree. However, upon completion I was standing up straight and felt very good.

When we went to grab lunch later in the day there was a drink special called a New Years Bucket. Curiosity got the best of us and we decided to split on. A New Years Bucket is a sand pail, filled with Rum, Red Bull and Cola. It was interesting, but I loved the novel way that it was served.

The area that we have been staying in is a historical area of the city. However Bangkok is a sprawling metropolis, and we kinda wanted to just go through the city and see what it was all about. So we hired a Tuktuk driver to take us to the only skyscraper that I knew the name of, The Robot Building. This took us on about a 15 minute drive through the city. I love tuktuks by the way. I feel like I’m on the Mountain Road level in MarioKart. When we got to the Robot Building (I know you are all wondering why it is called that, so I’ll spill the beans--Its shaped like a robot kinda), we took a look at it, and decided that we wanted to go again to the complete other side of the city again and see the Rama VIII bridge. This bridge dominates most views of the river and is a rather epic suspension bridge. Another exciting 15 minutes later we were there eating more fresh fruit, for there was a vendor at the base of the bridge, admiring the view from the middle of the river. When we were done with the bridge we found our driver waiting for us and he offered to take us to where there are boat tours. We thought that sounded like fun so we said sure. When we got there they asked for 600 Baht to do the tour, which was a bit much so we declined and from there we could walk back to our Guesthouse.

When we got to the Guesthouse we sat down in the lobby next to a German gentleman who we started chatting with. His name was Thomas, and he was touring Asia for the next few months with his Indonesian lady friend. Thomas, a widower with grown children, works 7 months of the year in Germany as a property manager, and then uses the other 5 months to travel the world. He has spent more time than us in Bangkok and told us that we were continually getting ripped off by tuktuks and that we had to learn to bargain them down. He and his friend (who’s name I regrettably did not catch) mentioned that they were interested in seeing the Chinatown district. Well, we hadn’t been there yet, so we offered to share a cab.
Getting stuck in Bangkok rush hour is not all that unpleasant in an air-conditioned cab with interesting company. We explained to Thomas why we were in Bangkok and he told us stories of him and his late wife getting arrested when he visited America. In china town we sadly parted ways. However, china town held the highlight of my day.

As we wandered the food markets and busy alleyways while snacking on Dimsum we turned down an alley to find the Leng Buaia Shrine. Now, I have no idea what the shrine was for, only that it was Chinese in its architecture. What grabbed my attention was the game being played in front of it. I later looked it up and found out that it is called Takraw. Its played on a hard surface the size of a volleyball court, with the net at about half the level it is at in volleyball. There are three players on each side and a woven rattan ball is hit from one side to the other, much like volleyball. However, with the lighter and smaller ball any move that is allowed in soccer is allowed in takraw. This leads to some very impressive looking kicks. The knees and head are also used a lot.
The most exciting part came when me and Steve were invited to play. It was the most enjoyable and beautiful part of my trip so far. They spoke no English, and I spoke about 4 useful phrases of Thai, so we were communicating mostly through hand signals, but they succeeded in teaching me and Steve the game, and it was great fun. We all laughed at Steve and my lack of talent at the game. I’m not sure how many points we played to, but we decided that the losing team has to do 10 pushups. I sorely regretted not having my camera ready to take a picture of Steve doing those pushups. After the game we were both handed a glass of Thai beer to cool down with.
Afterwards we wandered through the rest of China town, and eventually made our way to a Thai boxing stadium. The ticket prices were a bit steep, so we decided not to spend the money that day and see if we can find discount prices at some point. We then caught a tuktuk back to the hostel.

We decided to walk to Khao San road to get some food to eat, and ended up going to the last night of the New Year Festival, which was a short walk away from the road. It was odd that there were not many westerners here. It had everything an outdoor festival should, from music, to bumper cars (tuktuk training, I think) to carnival games and lots of food. We bought a plate of spicy noodles, with greens for a little over a dollar for both of us.

Tomorrow school should be open, so we are going to head to campus to see what is like and meet with the international coordinator.