UPDATE: I got a job teaching English in Korea! They just emailed me back, and want to hire me for the 10-day camp. This pays about $1,700 and will be a good, quick intro to teaching English. I can buy a ticket there, then fly from there to pretty much anywhere else, and still have a good deal of money left. In Thailand, this is a few months of travel!
Um… So this is different. In so many ways Bangkok is different. My room last night cost 150 baht, which is $4.50. Dinner, pad thai from a street vender, was 20 baht, so less than $1. Beers are less than $1. Look at the video below to see Halloween, Khao San road style. About ten minutes before I took the video, there was a full concert going on in the middle of the road, but the cops came and shut it down.
I got off the plane and right away met up with a Canadian couple who were headed the same way but were about to pay 900 baht for a taxi. I told them about the A2 bus, which is an official airport bus and it stops right at then end of Khao San and only costs 150 baht. They went to get it while I arranged my bag and put the security net around my laptop and camera. When I got to the bus stop, they had already left, so I had to wait. I met up with a 35-year-old from Dublin, Ireland, and we started talking. He just flew in from a two month stay in India and has been to Bangkok and Thailand six or seven times, so he was giving me tips and advice, and trying to teach me the language. I keep wanting to say thank you and hello in Korean though, so it will take some time. We went down the road looking for a place to stay, and ended up splitting a 300 baht room that has two beds, a fan, a side table and nothing else. Bathroom is down the hall, but it is clean and has a shower with warm water.
We went out to experience the sights and ended up talking to a Thai man for a while who had asked us for food, and the guy spent 20 minutes teaching me to speak like a Thai. We met an American from Nebraska who took us to a bar and paid for us to get in to meet his girlfriend and her friends. I’m not sure what it is, -but every ex-pat seems to have a Thai girlfriend. If a westerner makes eye contact with a Thai girl, she immediately latches on. Joe left a little before I did because I had met a guy from Texas who was leaving in the morning, and we were hanging out with some Thais he had met. We went to a different bar where I decided I wanted nothing more than to just go to sleep, so on the pretense of getting more drinks, I snuck out the side door and walked back to the hotel.
The walk back was interesting because late at night, the lady boys come out. I must have gotten propositioned at least six times on a 15 minute walk. It is hard to tell though, because you have to look for an Adam’s apple, which they can now get removed. The other tell is big hands and feet, which you cant change. Crazy place this Thailand is.
Anyway, I am staying here tonight again so I can try to get a SIM card for my phone, and figure out how to get to Krabi to do some climbing and relaxing on the beach. Since I have no plans, I can pretty much do whatever I want, and at $4.50 a night, I am in no hurry to go anywhere. But the beach has a very nice ring to it don’t you think?