We're home- sort of. Julie's post

After a 15 hour flight, we arrived at LAX last night around 8:30. This time we were smart and asked for an exit row on both flights. On the longer flight from Taipei to L.A. the plane was so large that our exit row seating really had no seating for 6 feet in front of us which was wonderful. We bought those u-shaped travel pillows and they made all the difference too. I slept a good 9 hours on the last flight. The longer flight had 150 seats free unlike the flight going which was totally packed. So we had no one sitting next to us which also made sleeping easier. I think I'm always going to ask for the exit row when we fly internationally.

Customs was such a procedure, more so than I ever knew. First we got bussed from our outskirts terminal with the hundreds of other passengers. However, we had to wait for the 2nd bus. Then we stood in the customs line for a good while and got asked the standard questions, then got our checked baggage, and stood in another customs line to leave. It only took about 45 minutes but it seemed much longer after still being groggy from the flight.

The last couple days we met up with Jenny in Bangkok and stayed in a very nice hotel in downtown with all the skyscrapers. Some highlights were going to a swanky jazz club at the very posh Sheraton Grand. We paid $12 US for drinks and went in totally under dressed with not a care in the world. When I'd look around at all those international tourists, I swear we were getting the evil eye from a good number of them. The waitress was also very rude and snooty which was kind of bizarre considering she's a waitress at a Sheraton in Thailand. The music was amazing though and that's all that matters!!

Some good points were riding the sky train above Bangkok, going to the Chatuchak market, and last but not least MBK 8-story mall where Eric bought a couple of bootleg games and we gawked at the size and scale of the place.

Our last couple days in Pai were bittersweet as we really didn't want to leave. It was just incredible. Our last full day there we got on our motorbikes and rode around for half the day just looking at the beautiful scenery and taking pictures.

We're in Orange County staying with Eric's parents until tomorrow. Then we'll drive home with the dogs and start our life over again in this crazy place called America. It's been quite a shift just driving around this area and trying to get accustomed with this American lifestyle again. It is nice to be home. :)

Thai Hooker - Eric's story

So... as it turns out, the Thai "cougar" (cougar = older lady on the prowl for younger dudes) that was hitting on me and buying me soda and ice cream was actually a Thai hooker trying to drum up some business with me.... that's how they operate I guess. I mean, I don't blame her, I am pretty hot.

So Julie and Jenny were setting up an art show in Bangkok and I decided to stroll across the street to a nice park right by the river and watch the boats go by... as I'm chillin' there, this older (40's) thai woman comes and sits about 25ft from me and asks me to take her picture, which I gladly do. She introduces herself as "Deeda" and proceeds to chat it up in her broken and barely understandable English. Now my Thai is no good either so you can imagine how the conversation went. Anyway, she asked me if I was married, to which I replied "engaged".... she clearly had no clue what that meant. She then started to tell me how lonely she was and how she had no husband and how she liked me and all this stuff.

Now me, being the ego maniac that I am, just figured some old broad was trying to score with "Bruce Willis" (yeah,this cab guy said i looked like Bruce Willis... he's right). Anyway, she then began asking me to go for a walk with her and I kept refusing. At this point I began to think that, perhaps, something was not on the "up and up"... I still wasn't sure what was off. I at first thought that maybe it was some scam, or some dude was waiting on the "walk" to rob me. I didn't get paranoid, just went on heightened alert. Anyway, time passed, she kept making small talk then offered to buy me a drink..... I kept refusing but she kept insisting. I started to think I was being rude, so I finally caved. Meanwhile I'm looking for an "out".

Thank god for Julie.... right when my Thai friend left to get her Bruce Willis a drink, my cell phone rang with Julie on the other line. Good timing too b/c the thai chick kept asking me for my phone # and I kept telling her I didn't have a phone. lol. Anyway, I told Julie where I was and to come rescue me.... which she did within 5 minutes.

The first thing Julie said to me when we walked away was... "you know that's a hooker, right?". hahaha.... to that point the thought never crossed my mind. Why would a hooker buy me drinks and ice cream? Aren't I supposed to be buying her stuff? That, plus my ego, made it hard to believe... but after thinking back on various things and relaying the story to Jenny for her thoughts, she was totally a hooker.

Still, I don't blame her... I am pretty fly for a white guy.

Ciao Bangkok, Hello Trang...

In less than 1.5 hours I will be on a train heading south to Trang, Thailand... a 16hr train trip. I'm definitely ready for some relaxing beaches, a direct contrast to the madness here.

Yesterday I got my first Thai Massage (I know the question and the answer is "no".)... $3. Can't beat that. It was fantastic. I think I will make that a daily event. It was much different than I had anticipated, sort of a cross between partner yoga, deep tissue massage, and wrestling.. haha.

This morning I went to see the Royal Palace... Julie and Jenny stayed behind. All I can say is "wow". The place looks unreal and straight out of a fairy tale... and this is 2008. Imagine how people felt viewing this place 100's of years ago.


Oh, and I totally got hit on by a Thai cougar today while I was relaxing in the park... she bought me a soda. More on that later, I have a train to catch!

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.