Crikey! Its Over Mate!

Bangkok has been absolutely mad and bonkers and wonderful. The heat is almost suffocating and the smell of exhaust mixed with durian and jackfruit is overwhelming. All you hear are the sounds of impatient tuk tuk horns bleeping, people shouting, and music blasting out of every nook and cranny. It is an overload to the senses with people dodging traffic with no regard for health and safety standards and colorful lights and scarves and trinkets and noisy wooden frogs and tropical fruits and the dance of bargaining at every stall.



I call it a dance because that is what it seems like. One extra second long look at something you may have found visually appealing and you have commited about 5 minutes of your life to bargaining. It is a careful courtship; you cannot start at a price too high that the seller will say yes right away, and you cannot start so low that they will laugh in your face and not even bother with you. So you judge value quickly in your head, do your conversion calculations whilst not changing the look on our face no matter how bad you would like the item. And then the dance begins, with back and forth swaying using the universal language of a calculator and as much body language as you can muster.

"Hello okay missy, hello okay how much?"
"40 baht"
"Oh no, no, cannnnnot, cannnoot missy, you give me more"
"Ok you tell me how much you sell?"
"I sell you 150 baht missy"
"Noooo noo, tooo much" (as you start to emulate their speech to get the point across)
"Ok fine how much you pay"
"50 baht"
"You pretty girl, i give you special price, i give you 120 baht"
"No, way too much" (as you start to walk away)
"Okay, okay, okay, (as they grab your arm or wave you back) look i give you best price i give you 150 baht for two!"

And the courtship continues until one loses patience or the other pursuades. It' s an incredible thing to watch.

The day we flew into Bangkok from Chaing Mai we walked Khaosan Road and then came home exhausted and ordered Pizza delivery. (Is that english...i dont even know anymore....) It was absolute heaven! And the first time I had pizza since our 3 day courtship of Pizza Hut in New Zealand! On Sunday we spent the day at MBK, which is this 7 story tall crazy mall with bargaining allowed. We got fobbed out sticker pics of the three of us, and got the last random things on our list. Yesterday in the day time we went to the floating market in the morning and then saw the Imperial Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.




Last night we ran into some friends and we went to Pat Pong, the Red Light District in Bangkok. It is definitely something to see...but....definitely not something to see again! They do quite unmentionable and revolting things with ping pongs, candles, razor blades (???) and the like (that's when we left). Ew. But it was interesting, i must admit. It was more curiousity on all of our parts, we got semi scammed like we knew we would. 100 baht for cola and free "looky-looky" but if you stay more than 2 minutes its 300 baht for cola an looky looky. So we sipped our colas and looky lookyed.

I leave tonight...and this is it! One 12 hour stop in Tokyo tomorrow so we are planning on grabbing some expensive sushi and a postcard or somthing. I reckon going from the baht to the yen is a little to hardcore for shopping. Throughout this trip i've been in an on-again, off-again relationship with Deet. On-again because I know I need Deet, off-again because no matter how much i put on i still get feasted upon by the misquitos. Seriously, I'll be sitting in a mini bus with like 20 people and the misquitos will all just come to me, pick a limb, and have a buffet. I'm surprised i dont have West Nile yet. I heard it happens if you eat to many bananas (increased potassium levels in blood...) but i gave up bananas in Australia because they were about $12/kg after the cyclones and I still got eaten alive. But that's neither here nor there....

My backpack is practically bursting right now. It took 3 of us and a whole lot of muscle to get that thing closed. My right hook does have quite a reputation though so I wasnt too worried. Half a year later and I am coming home a bit plumper, a lot darker, and without a watch. I am less stressed (even thought i'm currently unemployed and homeless in September), more independent, and i'd like to think my tattoo makes me about 2.57 square centimeters cooler. It's going to be weird going back home and having personal space again...I dont know if i can handle it...it will definitely be an adjustment! But I have a Welcome Back Surprise Party with my family on Thursday...quite excited about that! Oh how i love surprises :)