I can't believe that this is only Day 3 of the trip because my peoples and I have done a ton out here in Thailand so far. Right now, I'm writing from an email terminal in a resort that my man Travis picked out for us in Ko Samui (a Thai island about 1.5 hrs by plane from Bangkok) and he has outdone himself yet again. I swear this dude knows how to pick places that allow us to be ballers on a budget.
I'm pretty wiped out right now from the couple of days in Bangkok, but the time there was well worth any fatigue I'm feeling right now. We spent the daylight hours on a seemingly constant quest for sightseeing opportunities and we took advantage of some ofthe hot spots during the nighttime. We had to have visited 5-6 temples/palaces in the past couple of days and I was more and more impressed with each new one. Today, we went to the Emerald Palace and I was in awe the entire time...the place was huge and was full of some of the most beautiful architecture i'd ever seen before. It's hard to believe how old these things are because they are all maintained so well. I'm seriously determined to buy that Emerald Palace one day...a place that dope NEEDS me to live in it.
One thing that surprised me about the city was that one can do so much for next to nothing there. Because of the exchange rate ($1 = 40 bhat) and low cost of stuff, we were seriously budget ballin'. It is pretty shocking to go from paying $10-15 dollars for an average cab fare (~5-15 minutes) in NYC to paying the equivalent of $3 for a 45-minute ride all the way across Bangkok...but that sure didn't take long for us to get used to though. It got so bad that we'd immediately jump out of a cab if the driver wanted to charge us a flat 100 bhat for a ride instead of using the meter, which would have cost 40-50 bhat...and then I'd end up feeling triflin' as all hell when I realized that we were trippin' on having to pay $2.50 for the ride instead of $1.00. I could seriously get used to life in Bangkok and, once I get out of school, I'm going to have to get whichever consulting company I end up at to staff me on a project or two out in Thailand.
As good as things were in Bangkok, I couldn't give it a 100% A+ grade. One thing about Bangkok that I have to hate on is that, because most of the people there are smaller, it is damn near impossible to find a sized XL shirt out there. I saw some of the most original t-shirts in the stores, but I could never find one that would actually fit me. I'm pretty disappointed about that, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to find something that suits me here in Ko Samui or in Chiang Mai in a few days.
Another thing I was beefin' with was the epidemic of "no-rhythm-itis" I saw out in the Bangkok clubs. Imagine this...you're at a club and you see some beautiful Thai women who are dressed to impress. The DJ is spinning good AND recent music and you're ready to get out on the dancefloor and throw down. Then, your :-) turns into a :-( when you realize that the beautiful women are dancing like they have been afflicted with early-onset arthritis and a grand mal seizure. Even worse, when I finally found one that could dance, she wasn't checkin' for The Kid and hit me with "I've got to stay here and dance with my friend". Now, her friend was a straight-up mudduck with no rhythm, so I understand the gesture of kindness, but I couldn't help but be disappointed.
Alright y'all...time for me to grab the fellas and hit one of the restaurants in town for dinner. By the way, if you're a praying person, please say a quick one for one of my sisters. My mom just emailed to tell me that her water broke and her husband was rushing her to the hospital...looks like this is finally going down. Next time I post on here, I might be an uncle for the first time. :-)
Posted by marquis930 at September 8, 2005 07:42 AM