NO THAI GIRLS ALLOWED.

Bangkok. ah, what to say about bangkok. being here is reminiscent of backpacking in australia - especially since we are staying on khao san road, backpacker central. the road is full of clothes, souvenirs, handicrafts, bars, restaurants, guesthouses galore. but, move further away from the road and there are actually some culturally relevant things to do. yesterday we just wandered around the area, bartering for clothes and munching on lots of pineapple. we decided to take the feared tuk-tuk. everywhere you go, you're warned to not take these little vehicles, cause they take you to a million little shops that aren't on your way so that they can get gas tickets from the owners of these stores. well, we were bored, so we decided to indulge one of these drivers and were madly whisked around town, visiting random buddhas, a clothes store, and what was supposed to be our last stop, the boats....however, our tuk tuk driver decided to ditch us while we were visiting the lucky buddha (stop number 3), which was fine by us cause we hadn't paid yet, and we were just along for the ride.
last night we had a beer with a few fellow travellers, and ended up at the bar...each of the people in our group walk in, no problems, and then as i walk up i get stopped. confused, i look towards the sign that the bouncer is pointing at..."no thai girls allowed". hmmm...well, thinking that this isn't a problem (i'm canadian! and chinese!), i continue on my way, but no, i can't seem to convince this bouncer that i'm not thai. so, i have to get my i.d. (i.d.!! in southeast asia! unheard of), after which we all get a good laugh, and a few apologies. so i walk in and realize that i'm getting dagger eyes from tons of the thai girls...turns out, this is their hunting ground (think lonely rich white males with deep pockets), and they think i'm infringing on their territory...anyways, came out unscathed, but scarred for life (the first time i've ever experienced racial discrimination...!!) :)
today we visited a couple temples, wat phra kew (emerald buddha) and wat pho (reclining buddha). was cool to go and take pictures, but due to my lack of knowledge about the siginificance of such things, it was more aesthetic than religious...

pics are (in no particular order, since i have no idea what's going on)...some cool things at temples, me fashioning some fabulous fisherman pants (going to come home with every colour imaginable), khao san road at night, and a picture of our between-bus activities.

Trials and Tribulations

if you know me, you know i'm prone to danger in physically manifesting forms...here are a few of things i've managed to do so far...

arm: puking-kayak injury,

leg: rockclimbing/fending off monkey injury,

back: exposed skin attracting mosquito injury.

shockingly, i haven't been horribly sick yet - i've managed to drop a pill on the ground in a random malaysian food stall (and eat it - those things are hard to come by here!) and crawled under a dirty bungalow twice cause i dropped the key and my earrings through the floor slats...just to name a couple..

scaring away the tourists

no matter where in asia i am, everyone seems to think i'm a local. some of the white tourists are scared of me...yesterday i asked them (in english), where the money exchange was, and they pretended to not know english...i say "pretended" cause later on i walked past them and i heard them speaking english!! hahah...and all the thais are always speaking to me in thai, and they probably think i'm super rude cuase i never acknowledge them...and then i say something in english to them, and i become this amazing oddity...yesterday i was in a motorcycle taxi and the guy who was driving me stopped everytime we passed one of his friends and pointed at me and said something in thai, after which the other guy would stare/laugh and test out the theory by saying somthing english to me (in one case "yo, what's up"...very odd coming from a thai)...hahah, good times :D

bangkok...and beyond

We flew through Bangkok (BKK) when we got into thailand from malaysia...basically a family took us under their wing and brought us out for dinner, drove us around, gave us a tour of the whole city, let us visit their office (they own a gas and oil company), and took tons of care of us...it was amazing...we were only in bkk for one night...but will be back. it looks like a great city, and it's going to be super fun to explore later. Pic (right) of grandma ("meyh") and Pranee, part of the family who took us in.

Currently we are bathing on the beaches of ko phi phi...beautiful white beaches with limestone cliffs. and, also importantly (for me, anyways), lots of fun people our age to hang out with for a while (it's been a while!). The bus ride here was a riot...the bus station was like a cattle range, lots of people crammed together moving in every which way...but then we finally got on a bus, and it was heaven...reclining seats, thai movies (which are surprisingly amusing to watch), thai music videos, blankets...we had no idea what to expect since english is not the forte of the folks here in bangkok. at 11:30 pm we got woken by the hostess, herded off the bus, into a market, and fed dinner...luckily we had a fellow who spoke thai and english sitting the seat behind us, who clearly saw our distress, and helped us with the translations.
we first landed in krabi, then straight to ao nang beach for some R&R. the beach was o.k...but no waves, which are my favourite part of beaches (i'm not much of a sit around and tan kind of person...). mostly walked through the touristy part of town, buying clothes and looking at goods and, of course, eating. dinner included a POTENT drink...followed by thai massage.
Thai massage was CR-azy. with a capital CR. i had no idea what to expect, but it was wicked. it was a mix between active release massage (hitting all the pressure points and knots...really hard), chiropractics, and acrobatics (at one point, she was STANDING on my back...i thought she was going to fly off). they get right on the table with you, and use their feet, knees, elbows...who knows what else. i kept my eyes closed :) anyways, it was pretty awesome (and cheap), and even though it sounds awful, it WAS pretty awesome. definitely going to do it again.

so, i hear that it's going to start snowing at home....

i've been posting all my pics in facebook...enjoy!