Hello Mae Sot: My First Taxi Ride Was A Tuk Tuk

Good evening all. Well it is 12 in the morning here in Bangkok.
We got some sight seeing in here in the city of Bangkok. It was the first time i had ever been to anything like this. This is the view from our hotel room after we arrived and checked in.

This is a view of the traffic that we fought for an hour until we gave up and told the driver to let us out we'd walk and get there faster. Which we probably did. What you cant see in this picture is all the little mopeds that are filling in the nooks and crannies that the cars and trucks haven't filled yet. The the red light just turned green for the traffic on the left.
We had our far share of Engrish (engrish.com, it's pretty funny) sitings but i failed to get photos of them. i wrote them down but done have that ready right now.

Matt's buddy Zach had this program called Flat Stanley where you take "Stanley" out to different things around the world. To help them understand geography better and make looking things up on a map way more interesting. So far in the last month Stanley has been to Philly for a Redskins game and Pearl Jam Concert, Atlanta, Tokyo, Bangkok and Mae Sot. Not bad huh. We guess that this Stanley is the coolest one participating! It was awful nice of him to come along and hang with us some on this trip.

There has been lots to do and see here in Bangkok so there will be lots of images to come once i am able to sort through them all. I do have some quick shots of things to give you a taste.

Here is the palace of the king here in Thailand, it's called The Grand Palace. We had to rent some pants to were into the palace cause they didnt allow shorts or some other outfits. It seemed like the Americans may have been weeded out. Any how the architecture in these buildings was really quite stunning. I enjoyed taking some shots with the Holga and look forward to getting them developed. While we were here we were asked by some students to help with a survey. Basically asking what our name was, where we were from, occupation, what we saw as similar in our home countries and Thailand. It was pretty fun actually. After it was all done they took my picture. i asked if i could take his picture and when i held up the Holga , he said "OH, LOMO!" I was excited to have found another lomographer in a foreign land. I actually met another fellow from Ft Bragg NC that commented on the camera as well. It's funny what will bring people together. Plastic cameras and film will do it some times.

The power-lines here are scary. I felt like i was walking along side a BIG hazard that would start the end of the world at any moment. It is almost as hairy as the moped traffic that we had to deal with.

Here we are on a boat ride after a long day of walking around and being mobbed by street vendors out side the palace. The fresh air and being away from the crowd was a good and much needed change of pace. I think the walking and the heat of the day was getting to everyone. We had people basically putting stuff in our bags and demanding that we pay for what we "purchased". Being that we are about a foot taller than the rest of the population and white as all get out, made me (us) pretty good target to boot. It was almost as much fun to watch Ezekiel take in the sights as it was for us to enjoy them ourselves. Here he takes some pictures form the boat ride.

The Suan-Lum Night Bazaar was a hot spot...literally. It has been 90+ degrees easy here in Bangkok, with the humidity and smog of a big city. The bazaar is just like our US Flea Markets excepted they're jacked up on crack or steroids. It's insane what you can find here. We saw everything from live moneys running around and jumping on unsuspecting people tonight to the normal things like 8" tall Zippo lighters of a bottle of Jack Daniels that have lasers in them too, you know that sorta stuff.

After we were done tonight we grabbed a cab home. This was my first experience with cabs. What a city to have this 'first" happen in. We almost had to scream "Oh crap, they killed Kenny!" After a typical Bangkok car pulled out into the typical oncoming traffic. As you can see the terror has not quite left Kenny's face yet. Being that we are driving on the left side of the road the car about crashed into Kenny's side. It's good to get the ticker up and running makes you feel alive or just slightly soggy in your pants.