Monday, January 8, 2007

Monday 1/8 in Bangkok

Jenny says that the two greatest things in Bangkok are 7-11 and the Big C. Paul had told us that there were 7-11's on every corner, and indeed there were two within a block of our hotel.

The first thing we did was buy sim cards for our phones (200THB each = $6 US), and then called Ram, Jenny and Eric who were at a bird reserve about 100km from Bangkok. They had rented a car for the 2 weeks that they'd been in Bangkok and explored much of the parks, wats(temples) and ruins, travelling almost as far north as Chiang Mei and logging about 2,000 km of travel. Driving seems pretty crazy, especially around Bangkok, because you drive on the opposite side of the road, and there are pretty much no traffic rules...everything is ok until you get into a crash (in the event of a crash, the drivers pretty much split if they can, as many don't carry insurance). We might brave a car in Chiang Mei, but we'll see.

After talking with them we went for a walk and exchanged money in the bank. It was very busy because they are one of the only places to buy the thai lottery.


We met up with Jenny, Ram, and Eric at their hotel, which was adjacent to ours, at about 11pm. Our meeting was delayed about 1-2 hrs because of discovering the Big C. It is like a walmart and shopping mall combined, and we spent about $75 US there on clothes, shoes, and food. The most impressive sight from this day was the wall of oil at the Big C.


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