Sa-Wah-Dee-Krap Bangkok, We've Arrived!

For those who don't know, sa-wah-dee-krap is the standard Thai greeting with the suffix 'krap' interchangeable with 'ka' depending on whether you are a male or female speaking - 'krap' for men and 'ka' for women (These suffixes are a politeness and used often when Thai is spoken). Jill and I are in Bangkok ahead of schedule. We have just met Sean Brady, a Canadian expat and a good friend of Mom & Graeme's, who has been kind enough to put the two of us up in his house while we're here in Bangkok. Just now we're in his office which is not far from Lumpini Boxing Stadium. Momentarily we'll be picked up by Sean's driver and taken back to his house (on Soy Yenakat) where we'll stay for the next few days. I have no idea how we'll have time to see a fraction of the things we want to in this enormous city of 10 million people! Just now Sean is calling around to see if he can find us tickets to a professional Thai boxing fight-- something I'm pretty psyched about!

Koh Phan Ngan was spectacular! We literally had to force ourselves to leave the paradise resort we were at. Fresh towels for a change, along with fresh sheets and a cute restaurant on the beach where the staff, like most Thais we've encountered, could barely speak English. Interestingly, most people we've met so far in Bangkok can speak English quite well, but all the signs -- like everywhere in Thailand -- are in Thai script (which is like trying to read hieroglyphs!).

The communication breakdown with language and script is the main reason we ended up here in Bangkok earlier than we had planned to. You see, we were lucky to make it to the mainland from Koh Tao alive. All I remember about the trip is huge waves, our tiny speed boat, lots of puke and a Buddhist woman with a shaved head a big grin who kept looking at me and laughing as she threw orange peels and plastic bags into the sea. Once we arrived on the mainland we caught a northbound mini-bus to Phetburi. Now I don't know if they just didn't understand that we wanted to go to Phetburi or they simply didn't want to stop or they didn't want the hassle of unpacking everyone out of the bus just to get us our (we were rammed tightly in the back...not for the claustrophobic! Anyway, our bus just passed our stop by and by the time we asked when we were stopping in Phetburi we were already on the outskirts of Bangkok. I hope Sean and his wife Primsiri don't mind our unexpected early arrival.

A.