Auf grosser Tour...

Freund_innen der Sonne,

dear friends,

as most of you would by now have to know since you are reading this, i decided to spend my summer travelling southeast asia (SEA) and as long as i can since i am in bangkok and have the time and possibility, i"ll try to update this blog..

achievements of the day

- successfully checked into my first guest house - the ugliest place in the neighbourhood, but for now i"m staying in bangkok"s backpacker-ghetto and this is supposedly the cheapest place around (had to take a double room, it"s 200Baht ~ca.5 euros a night), has a fan and there are shared showers and toilets, so i"m ok :)

- spend 2 hours browsing the Kao San Road market without buying anything!

- got smiled at for a (hopefully correct) complete thai greeting: sawasdee and a wai (kind of bow)

- got laughed at for trying to ask for cigarettes at a 7-11 in thai

- got lost and surprised by the rain (it"s monsoon season and the rain starts VERY suddenly and is VERY heavy) just to find out i was 3m from where i meant to go, but had a De-li-cious mango-shake while waiting for the rain to stop (made me think a mango-shake in germany can really not contain any mango at all)

- saw 2 girls with a "Berlin"-bag and thought "ah, tourists. they must be on a tour through europe"
haha.

- realized that it was not a joke: a 30min foot-massage really costs 100 baht here (bit more than 2euro)

- understood no alcohol is being sold from 6 pm today
- didn"t understand why (buddhist holiday?)

- realized i have no clue what"s going to happen tomorrow (or the day after that.. or the day after that.. or the - you get the point ;))

- saw a fish-spa next to my guest-house. totally on the to-do-list.

- realized thai seems to be one of the easiest languages ever - if it weren"t for the pronounciation and the crazy words i just can"t get myself to remember (i can introduce myself in thai though, ask how u r, ask for fried rice with chicken/duck/shrimp= pork - not vegetables though. hoehoe. and -supposedly- cigerattes)

- had 2 little bits of chicken for lunch and thought i can get by on khao pad ghung/ kai/ moo\ beh (fried rice with shrimp\ chicken\ pork\ duck ;))

- already ate duck and pork 2 days ago b ecause i was invited by this awesome thai girl (YFU) and really didn"t want to be rude. thais don"t seem to care much about vetgetarianism anyways..

- found out insect repellent costs about 1/10th of the price in germany (germany)

- saw an estimated 100 stray cats, some of them small enough to fit into my hand, that really made me understand why someone told me not to bring a cat home with me. ;)

Ok, i need to get out of this internet cafe and get some pad thai (for like 60 eurocents) and see whether i can get myself to do anything else tonight or whether i just need to try and sleep in my sweaty box ;)

tomorrow> bangkok"s biggest market, then the bus to Ayutthaya.

Sawasdee kha from beautiful Bangkok
Laura