I'm in Thailand! (Part 1, Bangkok and the North)

Hey all,

Sorry for not keeping up the blog. We haven't been able to access the Internet as much as before. Well, maybe we haven't made the time for it. But that's OK since we've been keeping busy! :)

We're actually in Vientiane, Laos, right now, and have been out of Thailand for over a week now, but I have to keep up with my mandatory "New Country Impressions Posts". This will be the first of two parts since we're going back to southern Thailand in December. I should probably post another one about South India as well, since our impressions were a bit different in the South. We really got into the Indian groove and were really enjoying the country near the end.

Thailand is a huge contrast to both China and India. As Trish wrote in her post, we actually got culture shock when we landed in Bangkok because it's so similar to back home.

1- We were surprised to see that cars drive on the Left side of the road. Just like India and Hong Kong.

2- Pretty much all you see on the roads are pickup trucks or mopeds.

3- Tons of people wear yellow shirts. We think it's the official government worker uniform.

4- Taxis have meters here but the drivers will try and get more money from you by quoting you a lot more (double the cost) and not using the meter. So it's always good to force them to turn it on.

5- The roads are clean and smooth and lined with proper street signs, the air is pretty clean, there are no animals in the streets, it smells much better.

6- There's a 7-11 store at the corner of almost every street.

7- It's full of tourists and Westerners, probably because it's so easy to travel around here.

8- It's much more hygienic. Almost all places have Western toilets with toilet paper and soap.

9- As with all the places we've been to, the food is great. Especially Green Curry. Mmmmmm.

10- ATMs are everywhere and accept our TD Bank card. Phew!

That's about all I can remember for now. Thailand has a much better infrastructure for tourists, especially since it's the main source of income for the country. So everything is very well tailored to western tourists. So it makes for a less interesting impressions post. Even so, we've had a blast in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and our 2-day trek up in the hills where we rode Elephants and Bamboo rafted down a white water river. Although you'll see in the next post that Trish didn't really enjoy the trekking as much.

Again, sorry about the long gap in our blog. Trish will follow this one up with her own post tonight or tomorrow.