bye bye bangkok

tonight were getting on the overnight train to phuket! yess! bangkok is a city for sure.. but nothing like sf or new york or any american city.. there arent really any high rises..and walking around theres random beautiful temples just everywhere! and lots of cars and crazy intersections with timers and such.. quite a few trees and crappy air quality.. the other night i talked to this kid from perth for a while.. and he gave me a good idea of what to do yesterday, telling us which public transportation to use.. maybe youve heard of tuk-tuks.. o my. they are little "taxis" that scam you. they say theyre a cheap taxi but really they just take you to a tailor to get a suit.. everytime.. so ive been told. theres signs and warnings in lots of buildings saying beware of the strangers with the tuk tuks or a private boat... so far we avoided the tuk tuks.. and the private boat.. well we prolly got ripped off but it took us everywhere we wanted to go! it stopped at this cool tall temple thing that ppl were climbing up.. of course we didnt have our sarongs for proper attire with us.. so between having to pay for that and the 20 mins we were allotted to look at the temple from our boat lady.. we didnt get to climb it. we then we to the floating markets... which after spending over an hour at the train station talking to the guy.. i found out those are the fake ones. it make sense cuz they werent actually floating markets.. more floating restaurants or food carts. it was still pretty cool.. tons of boats lined up with any fish or thai noodles and sticky rice you could imagine! i had like 5 giant prawns for 100 baht (like 3 dollars) so i thought that wasnt so bad? we've been eating a lot at the food carts..they line every street and have basically anything you want.. fruit, meat, "hotdogs," soup, pad thai.. i just saw an ice cream one even.. all the meals are somewhere between 1-3 bucks. pretty good! so after our floating market experience, we were dropped off at the royal palace adn the temple of the emerald budda.. again not what you expect.. so maybe that applies to asia. it was cheaper than our boat, but still expensive to go look aruond (~11 bucks) considering the thais go in for free.. also every time we stop the boat. there was a dock man charging us 20 baht.. pshhh. theres no hiding here either.. but at least the people arent so crazy tan like bali.. but im def above average height.. and were in a city... so different ppl and tourists are more common. im defintely above average height here which is nice.. but not nice for buying the one size fits all clothes.. at least the tiffanys jewelry and lacoste shirts still fit! hahah. the knock offs are amazing. not as much bartering here either... it still exists but we got pretty good at cutting costs.. and here there are more standard prices. maybe its my reallly long legs, but i walk way faster than ppl here. no one is in a hurry.. i just dont like wasting time.. also its important to not walk in the middle of the sidewalk. thats where teh hanging signs end.. and apparently the buildings sweat as much as we do in the humidity.. so they just drip all over you! the traffic is interesting.. i understand asain drivers now.. but walking traffic in thailand doesnt make sense.. they drive on the left, ride escalators on the left, and walk on the right. hmm. this morning i went and got our train tickets for tonight.. this little old man saw me walking and so i talked to him for a while.. and he showed me the 'cheap' place to get tickets.. they were way more than the ones we tried to get yesterday... adn then by the time i made it to the train station they were basically the same price although everyone says that everything here is the same standard price.. they are lying.. kinda like the tuk tuk man who told me it was a long way to the train station and i wouldnt be able to find it.. and i was standing in front of it.. maybe they think were really that dumb. the drinking fountain with spring water as they call bottled water also lied.. poor jenna filled up her water bottle there..shes ok, just not feeling like a million bucks.. the ones in bali were fine.. guess you did haveta pay a nickel for that one tho. these lying thai ppl need to go to bali to learn some honesty i think!