C:\Marlow\

I don’t know why I’m blogging more now that I’m in Thailand. My guess is either the warmer weather makes me more creative or that now that I’m outside of my Korean everyday routine I actually have some interesting things to write about. I think I’m going to go with the latter.

So we just got back to Bangkok, which is like our pseudo home in Thailand. We landed here from Korea, we then left on the tour of Kanchanaburi and then came back here again.

The tour in Kanchanaburi was fantastic! It started off on a rather low note in my opinion as the river Kwai museum was a large finely aged piece of ass. Everything had cobwebs on it and was falling apart. There seemed to be no effort at all to preserve any of the items that they were displaying and the translations were pretty poorly done. Then Nara and I got to walk on the old (what was left of it) and new bridges over the river Kwai. Which was cool and luckily Nara and I got off the bridge before the tourist train plowed across it without warning. Others weren’t so lucky and had to wait on these tiny over-hangings.

After the river Kwai we went to the river camp that would be our base camp for the next 2 days. We met some friendly Aussies at the camp and these awesome Italians. The Italians we’re really fun to talk to and had been all over but there was an odd language barrier. They both spoke a little English but Fabio spoke perfect French and Ivan spoke pretty much only Italian but with Nara and I talking French and Fabio translating there was little trouble

After a decent Dinner Nara and I decided to go the extra couple of yards and do the optional “bathe the elephants” item on the menu and got driven out to an elephant riding camp. Here we got thrown on the back of a slightly disturbed Asian elephant which then preceeded to constantly walk off the path to grab food despite the yelling and frantic grunting of our 8 year old elephant driver. This wasn’t too bad until the elephant almost went down a hill sideways at a 45 degree incline. We almost fell off this bastard about 5 times and I’m sure it would’ve hurt plenty. Once in the river the elephant began blowing water/snot all over Nara and making noises akin to that of a slightly broken lawnmower at another elephant, which the guide tried to convince us was because they were friends. Everyone one of us got chucked off the elephant at least once and we all had a great time washing these crazy dudes. Well worth the couple extra bucks and I’d highly recommend you accept the next time someone offers to let you wash their semi-crazed elephant.

< Elephant photos to arrive here once hard drive roblem is resolved>

After all that jazz, we went to see a beautiful waterfall but there were no psychotic pachiderms so i’ll just leave some photos to look at

< waterfall Elephant photos to arrive here once hard drive roblem is resolved>

The next day we got to ride the elephants at the same camp on a seat but it wasn’t quite the same as riding them bareback down a steep hill so it was unfortunately a little of a let down but fun all the same (note: next time ride the elephant and THEN clean it). Then we went back to the camp and relaxed for a bit before heading off to the Tiger Temple which was FANtastic.

UPDATES TO FOLLOW BECAUSE I THINK THIS THAI LADY WANTS US OUT OF HERE.

Well Nara and finally arrived in Thailand at midnight on our Saturday. We went straight from the airport to Khao San Road, which is the backpackers haven in Bangkok. We jumped in a cab for 40 minutes racking up the huge bill of 291 Baht (about $9 or so).

We weren’t on this road for even 5 minutes before I came across some Thai bboys dancing in the road. Nodded a greeting and then we grabbed a hostel room and went back to see the bboys. They had already stopped dancing so I was a little downed by that as I wanted to join in. One of them, however, spoke perfect English and we chatted for a bit. There are no competitions coming up this week while I’m here (I think I saw Nara smile when he said this) but he gave me his proffessional bboy card so I could give him a call to go and practice with him and his crew. I think I like this country.

We walked around Khao San for a bit and I grabbed a Pad Thai for 20 Baht which is approxiamately $0.64. Not a bad deal at all. Anyways, we didn’t ask to see the room at the Hostel because it seemed pretty bare in the photo anyways so we didn’t think there’d be a problem. We didn’t however expect there to be no bed sheets. Oddly enough Thailand nights aren’t as warm as the days and it was an uncomfortable sleep to be sure. Not staying there again, to say the least.

Anyways, I’m sorry I don’t have any photos to update with but in a day or two I hope I’ll have some nice shots to show off on here and keep you all entertained. Tomorrow Nara and I should be going to a tiger sanctuary among other things so stay tuned

Where else do you think I should go and what should I eat? I hope you guys have some recommendations for me