BANGKOK: REDISCOVERED....

Or... shall we say we're hoping we'd rediscover it this time. :) We got to Bangkok last Monday after a very nice and relaxing 7 days at Koh Chang island. Even though it rained almost every day, it didn't rain all day. It would pour for a couple of hours and then clear up and the sun would be out again, hot and scourching, the type that makes my skin look almost black and Katy's bronze... We feel that after shorter (time-wise) but no less interesting or challenging than we expected backpacking, or again the correct term in our case would be "trolley-packing", this very relaxing week in Koh Chang is a good closure. We expect that the next week we might well be in Uzbekistan in our apartment figuring out what should we do first among many many things that we have to do. We are very excited and anxious about going there, but believe that it will be all good.

So far, Bangkok is not as stressful as it was last time we were here. Although upon arrival one taxi driver approached Katy trying to get us into his car and of course rip us off, but after we declined he did this airy kiss to Katy while I was grabbing our bags from the bus. I wish she kicked in his puny balls and I'd have added a few punches to his ugly greasy face. But I wasn't there when it happened and Katy is too classy for kicking an imbesile in his "punies". Aside from that we're good. The accomodation, which our friend Janice recommended is very well decorated. It wouldn't have been our first choice because we don't really care about it, but it's nice for a change. It serves all organic food and has many rules for the guests in order to keep it clean and estheatically pleasing. For example you're not allowed to have any food in your room, except for plain water to keep roaches and rats away. But of course we've been naughty and we snuck in yogurts, cakes, breads, a can of tuna (which we brought from Koh Chang, because we didn't have time to eat it there), and even fresh carrots, which Katy bought thinking she'd snack on them but because it's freaking 33 degrees in the room the carrots went rotten in one day, so we threw them out today. Anyways, we took all the naughty garbage, which would indicate that we're violating the rules of the guesthouse, out with us and disposed of it outside in the bin. haha~

In order to not to deal with the tuk-tuks and shameless taxi drivers who don't want to go by the meter, but want to negotiate the inflated "tourist" price, we bought a map of Bangkok with the bus routes and are planning to go around the city by bus to save us nerves and money. Honestly, it makes a big difference if you don't have to deal with the tuk-tuk mafia. Bangkok actually can be enjoyable, although still hot and sticky. We don't have really much to do here except for just hanging out and maybe going on some trips around Bangkok. We also have this idea of visiting the BangKwang prison for men about which we read a book, and which is a terrible terrible place. Of course all prisons are, but this one in particularly. Apparently you can visit the inmates and just talk to them and give them some food or money. And there are many foreigners there, so, we're thinking maybe we will find some Kiwis or Russians or maybe even the Uzbeks. Who knows...

Now, in order of appearance:

1. Our view from the bungallow we stayed in Koh Chang.

2. Our bungallow

3. Beaches and sunset shots

4. The dogs seem to enjoy the sea view as well as humans.

5. Mangrove forest and a man packing his daily catch to sell at the market.
6. Oh.. well.. just us.. I thought we looked cute here... ha~

7. Some food that we ate for about 3 days in a row... BBQed stuff... very good.. The garlic bread was so good~

8. After about a couple of days in bungallow Katy discovered a poo on our mosquito net. It didn't look familiar to us, i.e., didn't look like a poo of a rat or roaches or some other animal. I did some looking and searching around and we found a perpetrator. It was a huge gekko that was hiding behind some of pillars in the ceiling next to the wall. Towards the end of our stay this beautiful blue with orange spot sonofabitch (you'll see in a moment why I call him that) got so comfortable with our presence that he chose to pee all over my clean thighs and my silk-sack right about when we were going to go to bed. It just felt like sudden sprinkle of stinky uriny water. I looked up and what do you think he was sitting there looking down with his beautiful big eyes... little blue SOB!!!

9. In the department store we went yesterday with Janice. Katy liked that shirt but it was too expensive to buy so we just took a spy foto to copy it later... ha~

10. Contrast of buildings: slum, modern and artsy (weird?) and traditional Chinese... all stuck to each other.

11. Speaks for itself. I also had a foto of a cat sleeping in another phone booth, but somehow it disappeared from here... hmm.~