Madness in Thailand - Julie's post

It feels so nice to finally be able to post to the blog. Yesterday was a horrible, HORRIBLE day. Words really can't describe the day I had.

Around mid afternoon Eric and I came into our hotel's Internet cafe to post to the blog, check emails, etc. As I tried signing into my Yahoo email account, I was unable to. My password wasn't accepted. Then I tried to sign into my Myspace account. Again, password not accepted. My email account and myspace were the only accounts I checked when we were at the Internet cafe in Taiwan. The first thing I thought was OH MY GOD, my online banking password is the same as my email password. At that point, all I could think was, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, I'm fucked! Once I regained some sort of sanity I quickly remembered the many safeguards BofA uses with their online banking to ensure your account won't get used.

I spent over an hour online changing passwords and trying religiously to get into my myspace account but apparently whoever hacked into my email account was able to change my myspace password and perhaps even change the user name to their email address. So, I can't get into my myspace, and I can't really do anything about it until I get back to the States.

Eric's pretty sure they're just using my email and myspace to spam, and thankfully my email is now under my control. The weird thing is Eric hasn't gotten any spam in his myspace from "me" so we'll see. My apologies to any of my friends on myspace if you start getting spammed. I'll take care of it when I get back.

I was so scared yesterday. All I could think about was how all of my personal information gets sent through my yahoo account and how that was all potentially looked at. All of my banking information especially. Thankfully BofA knows I'm in another country and has put in safeguards to watch for fraud on my account. They know what country I'm in and that my cards will only be used in this country, so we will see. Please pray for me.

So onto the good stuff!

I don't even know where to begin. First off, I've never experienced a place like Bangkok. It is controlled chaos like Eric said and I find myself finding it much like Burning Man in that I've seen the most insane things while walking the streets of the city.

Jenny said that the first time she visited Bangkok she became overwhelmed quickly. I found myself completely and utterly overwhelmed with stimulation last night and had to excuse myself from dinner and walk the few blocks back to my room alone. It's been very much sensory overload from the day we got here. However, the difference about yesterday was that I spent much of the day freaking out about my hacked email account, which exacerbated any type of overwhelmed emotions I was already feeling.

On top of that, I woke up this morning with a stomach ache and nausea. haha. Eric left about 30 minutes ago to see the Emerald Buddha and Temple. I decided to stay behind and blog close to my room, in case I start feeling worse. Luckily we got prescriptions for antibiotics before we left the States, just in case we were like the 50-80% of travelers that get traveler's diarrhea. I'm still holding out hope that this will pass, mainly because I've been taking probiotics for over two months for this very reason.

I've had so many intense experiences that it's hard to go into depth about all of them. So, instead of rehashing every day minute by minute, I'm turning to my journal for excerpts I've felt over the days...

We went to the reclining Buddha on our first full day in the city. As I stepped up through the intricately detailed temple, I was quickly awe struck by this enormous beautiful piece of spiritual art above me. Tears started coming down. The term "beautiful" does not do it justice, as really no words or pictures can express how this made me feel. All of the temples require shoes to be taken off and because Eric wears leg braces, he needs to sit down to take them off. As we asked one of the guards where we could sit (the benches on the sides of the temple clearly say "NO SITTING") he motioned over to a few feet away from the walls of the temple. His eyes drifted to Eric's feet as he started taking off his shoes and braces. The man looked at us with that look of understanding that has no language barriers. He walked over to us with this sense of reverence as he reached down to Eric's shoes and helped him untie them. He motioned for us to leave our shoes next to him and not in the public area where everyone else's shoes are placed. As we came back through the temple to get our shoes when were were finished, the toothless guard quickly came over us and took Eric's hand to help him down the steps. He also helped him to untie his shoes and put his braces back on. Although Eric didn't need the help, he was so attentive and understanding and it was the most intensely beautiful experience I've ever had, ever...in my entire life. I find myself crying over the very notion that no words need to be spoken, and that love is universal. Presenting yourself as you are, physical "flaws" and all, makes us all more human. I've found that the more human I am in this land of great differences, the more able I am to connect in a very real manner.

I wrote this entry in my journal after the boat ride from the temple and reclining Buddha.
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"Today the world stood still on that boat. 'A smile is universal' replayed in my head from nearly 10 years ago when I took my first college Sociology class. There's just about nothing more inspiring and scary than relinquishing your hold on what you believe the world to be. We all have preconceived notions of how people should be or how the 'rest of the world' really is.' Regardless of whether or not those notions are positive or negative, you quickly realize that you have them. They are staring back at you each time you look into somebody's eyes."
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Today we go with Jenny on an overnight train to Trang, in the southern part of the country, and then to her small village even further south. I'm very excited to get out of the big city and see countryside. Wish us luck, and that this stomach ache will pass!

Much love,
Julie

Day 3 in Bangkok - Eric's report

Wow!! Where to begin? I guess, technically I just completed day 2 since we arrived at 12:20pm on 4/28 and it is now 3:oo pm on 4/30... anyway, who cares. Point is, in the short time I have been here it has already been an adventure of a lifetime and with 27 or so days to go, I can only imagine what the future will hold. In 48hours I've seen extreme poverty, extreme wealth, extreme weather, extreme driving, extreme architecture and temples, and a stray dog crapping on the sidewalk.. lol.

Let's start with the food... I'm a huge Thai food fan and am literally in heaven right now. The food is AMAZING and cheap... we had a full dinner, 4 entrees and 3 beers (haha, I ate two plates our first meal it was so good) for $10!! Every meal I have eaten so far I have said... "this is the best food I have ever had!". No joke. Now, perhaps I have consumed dog, porcupine, and god knows what else, but it was damn good!

Traffic and congestion is insane here.... it's the most polluted city I have ever seen. Driving in from the airport (which is 50km from the airport... ha!, I said "kilometer") there was literally a yellow/brown cloud/haze over the entire city... 100x's worse than Los Angeles. A lot of people wear face masks (the surgical mask types) to protect them from the pollution. It's cloudy/overcast the entire time so far due to the pollution. The only way to describe driving and the traffic here is chaotic. We took a 3-wheeled tuk-tuk last night in rush hour traffic and I thought we were going to die about 20x's during our 20km-ish trip... I don't know how those guys do it, or how accidents don't happen every 5 seconds, but these drivers just have an odd sense of what's going on and somehow avoid what seems to be sure disaster. It's organized chaos as it's finest.... so many people in such a small place, everyone just sort of moves and gets around but from an outside perspective it's mind warping.


We went yesterday to Wat Pho ("wat" = "temple") aka "reclining Buddha"... it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Massive. A giant statue of Buddha, lying on it's side made of pure gold. Unbelievable.

As soon as I figure out how to get pictures off of my camera I will start posting pics. Tomorrow evening we leave Bangkok for Trang, 16hrs south.

We're in Taiwan!

After a grueling 14hr flight on China Air we have arrived in Taipe, Taiwan! We're now on a 3.5hr layover and then another 4hrs to Bangkok. My legs seriously feel uncomfortable after being trapped in that sardine can they call "Economy"... and to add insult to injury, on the way out they make you pass by Business and then First class so you can see the fully reclining chair/beds as you try and forget about your cramped legs and neck. But enough complaining, I'm in Asia, baby!
I'm off to check out one of the lovely duty-free cigarette/alcohol/chocolate shops then go wait for our flight.... maybe grab another plate of mystery meat and rice. :)

-eric

The flight for me actually wasn't too bad, surprisingly. Although the first few hours were a little rough because I kept waking up from my head bobbing from side to side. Although once I got delirious enough, which was around 7 AM US time, I was able to sleep for a good 3 hours or so. Luckily I'm not too tired, although come 9:00 tonight I'm sure I'll be more than ready to go to bed.

It's been wonderful here so far, everyone has been so kind, and it's so incredibly clean. It'll be interesting to see how Thailand compares. Well we should get going, there's a line out the door for this little internet cafe.

-Julie

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog documenting our adventures through Thailand! Who is "our" you ask? Well we are Jenny, Julie, and Eric. Julie and Eric will be departing Los Angeles tomorrow morning around 1.15am from LAX and will rendezvous with Jenny in Bangkok the afternoon of April 28th! Jenny has been living in Thailand for the last two+ years teaching children. Julie and Eric are completely new to the area and have also never travelled overseas together... should be interesting!

The three of us will be blogging here as time and internet access permits. Stay tuned!