Bangkok Day 2 - Jan 27th

Well, Bangkok has been a fun break from touring. It is nice to have a couple of days to relax and chill out. Yesterday we headed out and had a 2 hour thai massage. I think it was enough for me. The woman had every muscle in my body turned to mush by the time she was done. Her force got harder and harder. I think they enjoy watching people wince. It was great in the end. No need to do yoga if you could get a thai massage everyday. After our massages we headed down to a patio bar in Patpong. We drank a couple of pitchers of margaritas and chatted with some Ottawa boys. People watching down there is fabulous. We cut ourselves off after a couple pitchers since we are hitting the town tonight with our tour leader from Burma. She resides in Bangkok and we got along really well and decided to hit the dance bars tonight. Should be a good time. We hit the night market after but only bought a couple small things. I think over my last 2 trips I’ve bought almost everything they have there. Besides that Bangkok is WAY more expensive then Burma or Laos will be. Vietnam is also supposed to be cheaper. Today we got up and headed to the Jim Thompson house. Jim Thompson is a famous American who brought high end Thai silk to the world. He put 6 traditional Thai houses to Bangkok and put them together into a beautiful home. There is also a lovely garden there. It is one of the places here in Bangkok I have not toured in the past. The strange part is the Jim Thompson disappeared in the 1060s on a trip to Malyasia. No one knows what happened to him. I bought a couple high end silk items. It was a great tour and they explained a lot about Thai architecture which we really enjoyed. Since then we have had a couple drinks and a nice Mexican meal. The Mexican place had a great live Jazz band. Strange combination. We have a couple more hours to chill before we head out. Tomorrow night we meet up with our next tour group. We start with some Bangkok temples and then catch the over night train on Monday to Chaing Mai (North Thailand). I hope everything is well back at home. We have heard that winter is in full swing. We would never know it here in Bangkok. The smog and heat is unbelievable. It will be nice to get to the cooler temps we got used to in Burma again. We read that Laos and Hanoi are much much cooler. Sonya