Krungthep, the city of angels

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know Bill and I are alive. And bonus - we're in Bangkok! And super bonus - no missed flights, no interrogations in cold dark cells at customs, and no pirates (yet). It did take a really long time to get here though - that 14 hour flight to Tokyo was a killer. The 6 hour flight from there to Bangkok seemed like nothing after that (at least to me...Bill seemed to retain his sense of time just fine). The plane windows fogged up as soon as we touched down.

In line to get a cab at the airport, we met a crazy man who looked like a scarier version of Gene Wilder. He claimed to be in "finance." He asked us to share a cab from the airport, and we were too polite to say no, or too stupid. Though we did end up only having to pay 200 baht ($5) for the ride. Even the cab driver thought he was crazy - when he got out, we all kind of giggled. Then Bill and the driver bonded over soccer for the rest of the drive.

"Brazil not so good this year. That Ronaldo, he's getting kind of old."
"Yeah, old and fat."
"Yeah."

They were a lot more excited about it than I'm making them sound. Anyway, we made it to the hotel, slept really late (the hotel staff had to call us to make us leave), and set out the next morning for the river. On our way down to the river to catch a river taxi, a very nice Thai lady asked us where we were from, where we were staying, where we were going, etc. Me, I think she was just being nice, and a bit maternal actually - she seemed a little worried that we were walking too far, for example - but Bill, being more pessimistic about human nature, seems to think she was trying to rip us off somehow. Which doesn't really make much sense, because I don't know how she would have benefited from telling us to go to the official tourist information office. But ok, Bill, whatever.

We ended up taking a "tuk tuk" because of the nice/evil lady's advice (maybe she got a commission, I don't know). Tuk tuks are 3 wheeled open cars - I'll try to upload a picture of one here. Anyway, we made it to the river and took a river taxi up to Thewet, a much calmer area of the city. We heard a strange flapping noise when we stepped onto the dock, looked down, and saw thousands of fish flopping and gasping at the water's surface, all competing for the pieces of bread being thrown by people. According to one of our guidebooks, throwing bread to the fish is a sign of respect for vegetarianism... which is funny because the same people selling bags of bread pieces were also selling fish, eels, and turtles.

In Thewet we found the place we wanted to stay, Shanti Lodge. You can see pictures of it at http://www.shantilodge.com/bangkok/index.html - it's really beautiful. I definitely recommend this place to anyone coming to Bangkok. Though our room isn't air-conditioned, I think this is probably a good thing in the long-term; hopefully we'll get acclimated enough that we won't be pouring sweat constantly (it's a little embarrassing - we're such "farangs").

Anyway, more updates later. Feel free to email - there's a cheap internet cafe across the street (with lots of Thai boys excitedly playing Warcraft), so at least while we're in Bangkok it will be very easy to communicate.