TALES OF ASIA: Day 2 & 3

Let's recap the last couple of days in Bangkok's overwhelming heat.

And also, is it humanly possible to be this tired and not having fallen asleep standing yet?
The jetlag, or whatever it might be by this time, is making us old, making us go to bed at 8 o'clock or take an afternoon nap inbetween rounds on town.

We don't really eat much. It's too hot, and my gastritis is visiting again to no ones pleasure.
I woke up five today, which is not at all logic, not even in the world of jetlag since 5 a.m. is 11 p.m. at home...

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Other than that, we are having a great time. Yesterday we were playing at Art in Paradise and munching on BreadTalk, a place where you can buy bread!

And we like bread

but not waiting for gilfrend to take stupid photos when hungry.

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Today we lost our Khao San Road virginity. It was a circus, really, with tuk-tuks filling the street and vendors trying to drag one in to their store. One man put a hand on Jonathan's shoulder and he just froze, looking at the seller as he was the Joker to his Batman. I quickly got between them, flashed my biggest 'I'm so sorry but really really friendly and don't want no trouble ok good'-smile and dragged Jonathan away from there. I guess the strong reaction was due to a Vietnam flashback from Indonesia (hah) when a vendor followed us for over 100 meters with his hand on Jonathan's shoulder.
He reeeally doesn't like psysical contact with strangers...

Asia Tips number 1#

When walking on a crowded market,

a firm no + a big smile is always
the best way to be left alone

But Khao San Road was not all khaotic (hehh). We got some really great deals on a bag and two long pants which we needed, and now we have the pleasure of looking like every 'backpacker' ever traveled to Thailand to 'find themselves'. But they are so god darn comfy...

Well well; we took tuk-tuk (for the mere price of 100฿ Phetchburi Road - Khao San) to get there but getting back, everyone asked for the double. We said no, no and no (firm, with a smile) until we found a real taxi instead. He wanted at least 150฿ which we declined, but instead asked him to put on the taximeter. He laughed at us degrading and said there's no way the price is getting lower than that in rush hour.

WELL WELL MISTER. 20 minutes later we arrived outside Siam Paragon, only 75฿ poorer. I couldn't hold back a small "hah!" when handing him the money, which I of course felt ashamed for later.
But it's always good to succeed in not being fooled. Thailand is so used to tourists now, every driver knows damn well how to get as much money out of visitors as possible.

Asia Tips number 2#

Always ask for the driver to turn on the taximeter. He/she wouldn't give you a "very good price" if it wasn't higher than the meter would give you.

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Afternoon snack was of course

(BreadTalk)

We also wandered around in Siam for a good hour before finding our second favorite pin store in the world (the first being of course every store that sells Disneypins): Hard Rock Café. We now have a neat collection of pins from Prague, Bali, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Gothenburg and now also Bangkok. I'll show 'em one day.

We havn't drunk ('drink'? 'drunken'?) anything alcohol-y for ages so we decided to break the strike by ordering something fruity/strong and ended up with something superstrong. Or it was just the previous strike speaking.

We took a stroll home and fell asleep as soon as we laid our heads on the pillow. 

Hope Sweden is cold and awful right now.


No, really.
We havn't traveled halfway across the globe
for it to suddenly become summer in Sweden.

Cheers!