28.4.09

hiding with heidi

we have been laying low in bangkok, staying at our friend heidi's house. she has lived here for 3 years and is currently a teacher and the de facto principal of an english school. it was great to spend some concentrated time with heidi. we have not seen her for 4 years and yet we picked up our friendship like we had been chatting once a week. it is great how that happens with true friends. she was a thoughtful and dedicated host.
she has been a fantastic host, taking us to the best thai restaurants, letting us use her laptop and laundry and showing us where to buy good spices.

here we are at the beautiful "suan thip", a thai restaurant with huge manicured grounds that were almost completely empty.

kylie and i have been zipping around bangkok on the onomatopediacally named tuktuks and the sky train (sky train is more descriptive than onomatopia). we have avoided the cultural sites like temples and the palace in favour of crazy malls and a/c movie theatres. this is not b/c we are culturally depraved but rather b/c we are saving those sights for our time here with julie and lowell and carlynne and dan, who will be meeting us in bangkok on may 10.

after the cultural immersion of vietnam (and the boggy heat of everywhere), it was nice to watch a 3D movie. before the movie, and smack in the middle of 20 min of commercials, there was a song about the king with a little compendium of moving scenes from his life, and we all had to stand the whole time and honour him. interesting.
the malls in bangkok put canadian malls to shame. the juxtaposition of burnished chrome and shiny glass with the grubby brick buildings and dirty sidewalks of greater bangkok is somewhat jarring.

this is the pier a 20 min walk away from heidi's appt, where you can catch a boat right to downtown. we will take one tonight to catch the night train to the islands in the south. our destination is bottle beachon ko pha ngan, as recommended by hav and scott.

listerine flavoured pepsi? the taste of a new generation.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please tell me you tried Liserine flavoured pepsi. It sounds revolting!

Kirigalpoththa said...

Beautiful blog. I really like the one in the header.

Would it be possible to tll me where it was taken?

John and Andrea said...

Are you guys on the same tour as us??? After New Zealand we went to Bangkok (were also shocked by the CRAZY malls) and then traveled to ko Tao and Ko Samui. Have fun!!!

Lowell & Julie said...

FUN! Glad you're scouting things out- I particularly think I will enjoy the listerine flavoured Pepsi!

m+K said...

thanks for all the comments guys! no we did not try the freaky listerine pepsi, for all we know it tastes exactly like pepsi cola... i can only harbour hopes that it gives you menthol based super powers.

the picture on our header was taken on the top of mount cheam right outside our home in chilliwack, british columbia, canada! a great place to live.

Josh and Njeri said...

Did you make it to Khao San road? I finally started blogging on my trip. I need to finish the report on my last R&R before I go on my next one at the end of the month. By then you will be back at work and jealous of my freedom in traveling.

Cheers.