Bar Ku- the bar for u

us in our rental skirts at the Royal Grand Palace - apparenly knee length shorts are too scandalous
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Bangkok- a very interesting and bustling city tro say the least. We arrived late at night, but apparently there is never any shortage of parytying on the khao san strip, and loads of drinking, and wooded "croaking frogs" available. Wer spent our first full day stopping by all of the main touristy spots- seeing the grand palace, the large golden buddha, and taking a ferry boat acrtoss to climb the mighty stairs at Wat Arun. After this we made our way thrtough the city, visiting the large swing, china town, a few festivals for the mighty king, and the statue of "the girl that is twisting her hair".  However, the main thing about Bangkok is definitely the busyiness and the smells. Ass a tourist (especially 3 white girls) you are constantly being hassled by someone to ride in a tuk tuk, buy a sketchy souvenir, or get directions. The street people name out the big sites and then tell u where they are and ask if u want to take a tour,. The only thing that is helpful is that u get a freee orientation and direction is u are lost. After our first nite we learned that there is not much point in trying to have an early nite in bangkok. The second nite we set out for the bars, fiorst enjoying the local whiskey bucket at supper, and then ended up at a local street stand named Bar Ku- ie we drank in a parking spot for the evening with a man selling liquor from a cooler. good times.  We then went to a place called cinnamon where we drank blue kamikazes and wasted nite nite away.

on the ferry to Wat Arun
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The next morning we set of for the weekend market in Chachuchuk by sky train- about 3000 vendors all packed in tents tryin to sell anything and everything. We each bought a few purses and took in the sites and sounds, but after a while felt a bit nauseated, and made our way over to the zoo and the governemnt building to spend the afternoon. we then decided to relax a bit and went to our hotels rooftop pool until it closed. In the evening we made our way down to the nite market / red light district of patpong. Though the temptation was great we managed to avoid all of the locals requesting "ping pong" shows, and instead went to see some thai boxing followed by a thai cover band at the "Pink Panther". The misic was great- shania twain and old music circa grade seven big shiny toons- all sung in the thai english accent.

our 120baht photo
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Next it was on to Chiang Mai in the North for jungle trekking.... more to follow