Bangkok

On the 2nd and 3rd, we said goodbye to the group we had been with for the past 10 days and at 7:30 am, we left Cambodia for Bangkok. Having gone to Heart of Darkness until 3am the night before, we were not in prime traveling condition...

(Heart of Darkness is a Khmer nightclub with a seedy history. It is a hotspot for wealthy Khmer men, prostitutes, and foreigners. That combination--in the past--has often led to fights and shootings, usually between locals and foreigners. Good thing we all got patted down before entering...Actually, we initially went just to check it out--it's a pretty historical/well-known spot and we didn't want to leave without at least seeing it. We planned to simply drive by, but when we got there, it didn't look too bad and we decided to peek inside. Don't worry- it wasn't just a few girls going into this sketchy place alone. Morgan and I went with two of the American guys from Lynn University in Florida that we met earlier that day. They are traveling with a group of 20 as a part of a psychology and Buddhism course with some of their professor, and are also doing some social justice and aid work. As another side note to this side note, I haven't felt in danger at any time while being in Cambodia. Maybe it's the friendly people, maybe it's the fact that I have an American passport, or maybe it's that I'm about a foot taller than any Cambodian man out there--and probably outweigh most of them... Basically, I wasn't too worried, but it was nice to have some guys with us just in case. The guys actually got hit on more than we did... by guys. I guess Heart of Darkness has a reputation for having a lot of gay visitors... it was pretty funny. So to sum it up, they played good hip hop, we danced a lot, there was adequate air conditioning, numberous security guards, lots of foreigners, a few dirty white men schmoozing with tiny Khmer women, it was pretty clean, and it resembled a place we might go to at home, minus the commercial sex aspect. THE END... back to talking about Bangkok.)

Luckily the flight was under 2 hours. We got to our hotel took a nap and then set out to get a snack and explore a bit. Bangkok is very different from anything we saw in Cambodia. It's much more developed than any place we visited in Cambodia, which, at this point in the trip, is very refreshing. So, needing a day of recovery and leisure, we headed to a huge mall with the hope of seeing Sex and the City, the movie. The mall was huge! It was wonderful! There were floors and floors of great shopping (Mango, Zara, Guess, designers and designers and designers)--I only bought one small summer dress, don't worry--and a whole floor of neat food. We ate a bit of sushi and Thai soup, had some Thai iced tea, and wandered around in the airconditioned shopping superstore for about 4 hours until our movie started.

The movie was good... it's interesting to see how the writers would follow up such a long series. That's all I want to say so I don't give anything away. A few funny things about our Thai movie theater experience... There were 30 minutes of previews/commercials, the "long live the king song" played before the film (apparently they play it before all movies and everyone has to stand--it was interesting), Thai people think everything is funny and laughed a lot, and the sex scenes were censored (while Sex and the City is a bit graphic, it was pretty silly that any scene with sex in it was strategically blurred out). Another really interesting thing to see was the local fashion. People here (and especially those in the mall) have more money and dress pretty trendy (aside from the uniforms that anyone going to any kind of schooling has to wear). There was also a "premier party" sort of thing at the mall for the movie, so many people came very very dressed up. Needless to say, I felt pretty dirty-chic in my stained travel v-neck, worn jeans, dirty hair, and shiny face... hot.

Anyway, that's a bit about Bangkok so far. We're planning to see the Royal Palace, Royal Theater, take a trip through the canals on a river tour, and see a Muay Thai boxing fight. Since we don't have computers in our hotel, I might go do another update, but it won't be as often as it was while in Cambodia.