The following was written 6-29, in Bangkok

8:30AM BK Time The plane ride to Bangkok was uneventful. I slept all of the way. We arrived a little early. 11:30PM, I think. After going through Passport Control, I went to collect my backpack – which, thankfully, made it through unscathed. On my way out of the airport terminal, lots of private taxi companies tried to give me a ride to the red light district. I ignored them, and went out to wait for the Airport Bus, which is supposed to run every 30 minutes till 00:30 (I have to get used to 24-hr time. Everyone uses it here), but the bus never came. So I walked over to get a meter taxi.

Of course, I luck out and get the taxi driver who keeps moaning like he’s going to pass out right there and keeps an empty cigarette box next to him that he spits in every few minutes. His English was more or less limited to “Name hotel?” and even after I gave him the direction card to the hostel, the best he could do was get me to the right street. Not the best experience, and I’ve been avoiding taxis since.

After wandering around the Soi (side street) for a while, a taxi driver and two different tuk-tuk drivers helped me find where I was supposed to go. Their friendliness made up for the taxi ride. So after walking around for about 20 minutes at 1AM, I arrive at the hostel, dripping sweat.

After checking in, I drop dead on the first empty bed in the dorm that I see.

I woke up the next day around 8AM – in time for the hostels free breakfast of bread and fruit. Quite tasty, especially after airplane food. After that, I ventured out and explored most all of the areas that the Skytrain went to (it’s cheap and air-conditioned). Plenty of people tried to sell me cheap tours and prostitutes, which got annoying after a while. Around 2PM I cam back to the air-conditioned dorm room, figuring I’d read a little and maybe take a nap. As soon as I got on the bed I was out.

I woke up around 8PM, but it was dark out and, for some reason, I wasn’t hungry, so I just thought “screw it” and went back to sleep. Not exactly smart, as sleeping half the day isn’t going to help me get over jet lag. Though I think my exhaustion is more from heat than the time zone. I woke up this morning at 7AM, took a cold shower and washed my shirt, underwear, and socks. Then I went down to breakfast, and now I sit on my bed, writing this.

I’m not looking forward to going out again today, but know I should (and stay out – all day). Bangkok is chaotic, hot, and smells worse than Tacoma. Which isn’t to say it’s all bad, but I’m looking forward to moving on. I suppose today I should go out and do all the tourist stuff. The Skytrain is really limited and only takes you around “new” Bangkok. All the tourist stuff is near the river in “old” Bangkok, so I don’t know how I’ll get there. An air-con taxi sounds nice, but is probably the most expensive option. Perhaps I should figure out how the bus system works.

It’s going to be hot. It’s probably about 75-80F here in the air-conditioned room – about the top of my comfort level. And it’s only 9AM. It rained a little yesterday, but that didn’t help it cool down any. Well, I guess I’ll go brave the streets. Wish me luck. I need to get to an ATM, too.

10:00AM BK Time You haven’t lived till you’ve risked life and limb, weaving in and out of the streets of Bangkok on the back of a motorcycle. (They should make a Fast and the Furious movie here.) I was worried the driver wouldn’t take me to the right place, but he did. 150 Baht later, I’m at the Grand Palace. IT’d be nice to get a tour guide to tell me what I’m looking at, but I’m to cheap for that.

There’s hundreds of people here. White is still a minority.

Aah, a breeze…

I wonder if I got lice from that motorcycle helmet.

1:35PM Bangkok Time I’m at Wat Pho now. Home of the giant Reclining Buddha and the Thai Massage School. I think next I’ll go to the National Museum, which is probably air-conditioned. By the way, I’ve devised a new system to find one’s way around Bangkok. I found Wat Pho by walking in the general direction and waiting for someone to approach me and tell me the Wat was closed today. If I stopped hearing that, I picked another direction to walk in. And it worked! After all, here I am.

I find Thais are much more friendly here in the tourist part of town. I’m not topped every block by a tuk-tuk driver offering me a tour, because I’m already here.

Though I love the Suk 11, I wish it was in a better location.

Oh, I have plans for tonight: an air-con movie theatre! There’s a couple in Siam Square and from there I can Skytrain back to the Suk.

A cat just jumped on the bench with me. There are a lot of stray cats and dogs around Bangkok.

There’s lots of school groups the Wats, too. The little girls all get really excited if you wave and say hello. It’s funny. I kinda feel sorry for them in their uniforms. Must be hot.

The following was written 6-27, while I was waiting at the gate at Sea-Tac

11:31AM PDT Security was a breeze. I didn’t beep going through the detector. No one checked my obviously military backpack or my obviously military daypack. Funny, that.

They’re blasting CNN here at the gate. The news is kinda depressing.

By the way, when I was checking in they thought I was Pedro Honduras flying to Toronto. Oops. They found my my Double Agent identity.

The following was written 6-26, during my lay-over in Tokyo

4:00PM Tokyo Time So that was a 9 hour flight. Which is close to 19…

Shows how much planning and prep work I’ve done for this trip. I’m pretty much winging the whole thing.

Tokyo gets my vote for best western toilets. Those things are nice. The squatting toilets scare me, though. Squatting in the woods is one thing, but on porcelain? That scares me.

My body knows it’s midnight, but can’t figure out why it’s light out. (We followed the sun here. It wasn’t dark once.) I want to sleep, but I’m afraid I’ll miss my flight. Narita is nice, but there isn’t much to do here. So I’m just gonna sit here for 2 hours. Then sit on a plane for another 6.

I’m in Siam Square now. A place called MBK Center. It’s an 8 story shopping mall, pretty much. The internet cafe here is nice. They advertise 8Mbps and AMD 64-bit processors. Not very secure though, if you know what I mean.

I never did go to the National Museum today. Instead, I got lost and walked around the city for 3 hours. I think I’m getting over the heat now – though I say that sitting here in an air-conditioned mall. No, I don’t think I am getting over it. I’m drinking a lot more water, though. That helps.

7-11 here is like Starbucks in the States. There’s one on every corner, and if there isn’t room in a building, they setup in a booth on the sidewalk. A large bottle of water is 9 Baht. I’ve probably gone through 5 today. I’m really going to have to pee tonight.

Did you know that your body uses a lot of heat keeping your pee warm? So if you’re setting down for a cold night in the woods, take a good piss before bed so that your body can use that heat for better purposes. Random fact from survival training.

There’s a Baskin Robbins here. I had a scoop of chocolate. Man, that was good. They brought me a glass of ice water, too. Ice is generally a no-no here, but it looked to cold too pass up. So if I die in the next day or two, sue Baskin Robbins.

I’m debating whether I want to see a movie or not. There’s three theatres in the Siam Square area. All of them are playing Superman Returns, except for the one in this building, which is also showing Tokyo Drift. Neither of the films really appeal to me. There’s ads for Dead Man’s Chest all over the city.

Today is my last day in Bangkok. At least that was the idea. Now I’m starting to like the city. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll head north tomorrow, maybe I won’t. This is the last night I have reserved at the Suk 11, though.

I was planning on heading over to the station today to seeing about getting a train or bus ticket to somewhere for tomorrow, but that never happened. So I guess I’ll just wing that – hopefully I can buy the ticket a few hours before departure. I’m thinking about heading to Ayuthaya, and from there to Chiang Mai. Perhaps I’ll stop at Lopburi, but that seems to be the same thing as Ayuthaya, plus gangs of monkeys.

The Buddhist monks walking around the city aren’t exactly what I was expecting. Something about monks with cell phones and digital cameras just doesn’t seem right. I saw a tour bus full of monks at one Wat.

The Speakeasy speed test says I’m getting 1.4k down and 134k up. That’s from the Seattle node.

I clicked on the little thing that was giving me a count down of how much time I have left and now it went away. Doh.

The food stalls in Bangkok are awesome. I’ve been snacking all day. But I think I might grab dinner here. Did I mention there’s a KFC and McDonald’s? Depressing.

It’s sad that us Farang have to be so weary of Thai approaching us in the street. The vast majority are incredibly friendly. This morning while I was walking down the street from the hostel, two guys at a tuk-tuk stopped me. One tried to tell me that the Grand Palace was closed today, but the other guy shut him up. He said that traffic was too bad for a tuk-tuk, thus giving up money for himself. He then said I should take a motorcycle and, when I agreed, ran down the block to get me one. I was worried that the driver would try to take me to some silk/gem shop or some other scam, but he went straight to the Grand Palace and asked for the previously agreed upon price. Throughout the day, other Thais stopped me on the street. Some wanted me to buy something or tried to tell me something was closed, but the majority just wanted to talk. They always get excited when they hear I’m an American. Not sure why.

As nice as this mall is, the Thai music is getting to me. Not as bad as Japanese pop, but bad. I think – yup, they’re playing Spice Girls now.

I went to a weapon museum in the Grand Palace today. There was a whole lot of blades there. Guns, too. Speaking of which, I stumbled upon this two block stretch that was nothing but gun shops. I bet I could walk out of there with enough arms to start a small army, with not even an ID check. Bangkok is funny like that. They should have filmed Blade Runner here.

Well, I think I’m going to see about dinner. Long live the king, and all that.

The following was written 6-27, on the flight from Seattle to Tokyo

4:31PM PDTI think it’s just setting in how long this flight is. 19 hours, they say. We’ve only been airborne for 2.5. Think of what one could do in 19 hours. A hell of a lot more than sit in a plane and watch Firewall multiple times (which was a horrible movie, by the way). But I suppose it’s better than taking a boat…

I’m one of the few white people on here. Seriously, there’s like 10 of us. It’s kinda funny to watch the flight attendants – they have to decide whether they should speak Japanese or English whenever they want to talk to someone. So far its been all English with me. Which is good, as my Nihongo is a bit rusty.

I wonder how the Tokyo airport will be. Cooped up for 3 hours…

I hope people there will take USD so I can get decent food.

They served us lunch here, which was chicken worse than the teriyaki on Amtrak. But it was a large lunch, at least.

By the way, what’s up with Japanese guys and alcohol? All three Japanese business men in my row have ordered beer and wine. Is that a cultural thing, or did I just luck out? I’m indulging myself in water while I still know it’s clean.

I hope my backpack makes it. That’s really gonna suck if I loose that. There isn’t much money or any papers in it, just stuff.

I wonder if I’ll sleep? I usually don’t sleep in cars. It’s not even 5PM here and they turned the lights down and closed the shutters already.

7:19PM Is it bad when they ask if there’s a doctor or nurse aboard?

10:45PM I’m confused. Judging by the map, we couldn’t be more than an hour or two from Tokyo. Yet we’ve only been airborne for 8 hours and 45 minutes. I swear somebody told me this was supposed to be a 19 hour flight.

The only possible explanation is that we somehow jumped through a worm hole and apes now rule the Earth.

You’d think it would be difficult to screw up beef and noodles. At least I would. You got your beef, got your noodles, and bam! Beef n’ noodles. Oh well. It looked better than the pasta.

What’s this Japanese Tea I keep being offered? I highly doubt that if if I asked for Japanese Tea in Japan that anyone would know what I was talking about. And if it isn’t some American-ized title for a certain tea, it needs a better name.