Bangkok, Thailand

Got into Bangkok and met up with my hosts. The Sukumwit/Asoke neighborhood has the infamous Soi Cowboy along with big name hotels, trinket selling stands and the greatest concentration of Indian taylor shops I have ever seen outside of of the Subcontinent. This place is international in new ways: Hijab wearing teenage girls wearing mascara and lipstick making quick eye contact with Arab boys loitering. Belgian businessmen waking out of restuarants with thier rented girlfriends in tow. Mothers on a towel on the steet playing with thier infants waiting for tourists who still have a heart to drop a few Bhat in thier cup. I didn't go out too much tonight since the last week in Taiwan and the flight out from Taipei has me drained.

One thing I was warned about and I have to watch out for is too keep on getting fleeced for my cash. I bought a bottle of water at the airport for $US 1.25. At a gas station at the other end of the taxi ride in Bangkok I found it for less than $US 0.20. I give respect for the hustle the people in Bankok have got going. This place doesn't have natural resources or a strong industrial sector so people have to make what they can on tourism. In a place where fat tourists coming here to get drunk and sleep with the local women makes a noticable slice in the GDP, I don't blame people here for working hard to take what is so easily earned elsewhere. I can see how it can be very easy to be cynical here. I have a feeling Thailand is a beautiful and warm place and I think I will have to get away from the epicenter of the action to observe that.

I am going to start a novel now. This is sweet.