One Ride in Bangkok Makes a Hard Man Humble

Alright, 26 hours and 30 minutes of travel later and we're here.

Okay, so here's a few things that I've learned about Thailand since I've been here:

Thai people are generally very nice.

Sewery smells abound.

You don't need a building to run a business. All you need is an empty spot on a sidewalk and you can set up your sewing machine or park your scooter/restaurant and start making some serious baht.

There are no traffic rules. Seriously. You can drive wherever and however you want to. Wrong side of the road? That's okay! The sidewalk? Just another lane of traffic here. Stop lights? Who cares? Everybody goes at once. Crossing the street here is a terrifying experience.

There are more 7-11's here than there are in the US.

Bangkok is INSANE. There's nothing I can compare it to. The city is huge, and there's traffic and people everywhere. It's mean and muggy and hot as hell.

Scammers are everywhere if you're in a tourist spot. We kinda got scammed this morning. We were walking up to the Royal Palace when this super nice guy starts asking about where we're from,"Oh US?! I love United States. You like NBA? My favorite team the Lakers....blah blah blah......." He asks us if we have a map and starts telling us about all the cool stuff we have to see while we are here. He tells us what scams to look out for, and what a legitimate tuk tuk looks like etc. I'm thinking that this guy might be full of it, but he's sooo nice. He hails a random tuk tuk over and tells how much we should pay for it (40 Baht). It kinda starts to seem legit to us at this point. The tuk tuk driver tells us to get in and starts showing us the sights. First he takes us to a really pretty temple where there's a bunch of different types of golden Bhuddas. The building is very ornate and beautiful, but no pictures are allowed. Then he took us to a Thai boxing training center. There wasn't any boxing going on, but we did get to see the guys walking around in their funny little underwear. Kate starts doing pull ups, and Som, our driver schools her. He did like 10. Next he tells us that we get to go to this fancy clothing factory, and just our luck, today is the one day of the year that only foreigners are allowed to go in. This is where we start realizing its all a scam. We step in and realize that it's just a store to buy suits. We only have backpacks, so we're really not interested. We walk in look around for about 30 seconds, and walk back out. Som then says that he's gonna take us to a another factory that's bigger and better. Kate politely says, "No thanks." But Som insists that we go. Kate explains that we have zero interest in it, but he doesn't want to hear it. He starts begging us to go, so Kate tells him to just take us back to the palace. You see the scam is, if we buy a suit at one of these places, he gets a coupon for gasoline. Once he realizes that we're not buying into his scam he starts driving twice as fast and crazy as before, and he won't say a word us anymore. Once we are out Kate pays him the 40 Baht ( thats about $1.50) and we're on our way, a little wiser and a buck fifty poorer. You'd think that I'd learned my lesson at this point, but noooooo. We walk past a fountain with all these pigeons and a little old lady hands me a bag 3 bags of corn. "Good Luck" she says pointing at the pigeons. "No thanks" I say. "No. Good Luck!" So I throw one bag down and the pigeons go crazy. I try to hand her back the other two bags, but she keeps motioning for me to throw them. "Good Luck!" I dump them on the ground, hand her the bags back and walk away. Then, instantly she turns from a nice old lady into a mean old hag "YOU GIVE ME MONEY! NOW!" I hand her a 10 baht coin, but thats not enough. "NO! NO! ONLY PAPER MONEY!" I hold out my empty pockets and tell her that I don't have any more. She won't have it so I just walk away, pissed off. Aside from the pigeon hag, it was really worth it, we got to see some cool stuff and the tuk tuk ride was fun.