Thailand

At this point in the cruise we are jumping from city to city so quickly that
I can't really separate my blogs by country. I'll try to give an overview of
Thailand so far. First we went to Phuket, but I was working all day and all I
really saw was the port. Everyone said it was amazing and rode elephants and fed monkeys and I'm still pretty upset about it all. Then we were in Ko Samui which is an island. I think it's a popular vacation spot for it's beaches but I stayed in the main town or city. We ate plate after plate of amazing food and my bill was $4, honestly. I've noticed that food and transportation are so cheap in these places but everything else is pretty similarly priced. Luckily all I ever need is food and transportation. They are still celebrating the Chinese New Year I believe because people kept lighting off fire crackers and presenting huge displays of food outside their shops. I don't think the food was for eating so much as something ceremonial. I saw a lot of pig heads in Ko Samui. I have a quick video of one of the firework displays but one of them shot off and hit me in the chest so the video is very short. You can hear me scream just before I turn it off.

The next stop in Thailand was Bangkok. I'm lucky because I got to experience Bangkok by day and Bangkok by night. First I saw the nightlife. It was completely insane. Anything you could ever imagine happening in Vegas, NYC, Amsterdam, it all happens here only much, much crazier. I spent most of my evening in Patpong Market and by night the entire street was filled with venders. Anything you would want to buy, they had. DVDs, sunglasses, bags, tshirts, food, etc. It was like Battery Park but the people didn't pack up their stuff and run away when they saw the cops. I won't get into the details of my evening but I will tell you that I watched some friends get tattoos, get drunk and get propositioned for some pretty strange stuff. All I will say is that I will never look at a ping pong the same way again. By day, I couldn't believe I was standing on the same street as the night before. Everything was packed up and shut down. All the business people were out on their lunch breaks trying to grab food from one of the local venders. I saw a lot of people walking around with soup in a plastic bag, or drinking soda out of a plastic bag. It was very strange. We did have some excellent Thai cuisine, yet again. Margaret's dinner was so spicy that her lips plumped up and her tongue turned colors. She said it was delicious. We make it back to Thailand several more times and I'm sure the adventures will just keep coming.