Bangkok, Thailand
Arrival in the night into Bangkok.  The cab from the airport lacked power to make it up the short incline to the lobby of our hotel, Shangri-La.  Not a problem after 20 hours in the air and in sore need of a bath and a bed.  As long as we made it in I didn't care.  In the elevator up to our floor we overheard a couple speaking in Hebrew.  Robert piped in and asked them if they were from Israel and where they were traveling.  After elevator small talk, turns out they are related to Robert through his only relative that currently in Israel.  After two days of flying and from the sheer exhaustion of it this just doesn't seem to surprise me. 

Our room was plush with a view of the Chao Praya River.   After a shower and into bed, I heard dogs fighting and barking in the street.  This freaked me out as my animal activism mind went into overdrive as I imagine them rounding up the stray dogs to kill them.  Didn't I read something about this in my last PETA action alert?  Or wasn't it on a 20/20 special on the fur industry?  Sleep overpowered me before I can do good.

Last year when Robert was in Bangkok, he met an American that was living there and we arranged to hook up with him and his Thai girlfriend.  Still fighting a cold that I had before we left on the trip, I was not prepared for the weekend market.  Everything you can imagine is sold at this market and even armed with Nancy Chandler's colorful map, it is tough to figure out most of the stall locations.  Drinking bottles of water is a prerequisite and unfortunately means that one has to eventually make a trip to the bathroom.  I was scared off from my first attempt at the bathroom, as there was a fee to enter & to purchase the 4-5 square allowance of toilet paper.  I took this as a bad sign and that my sister (who had traveled to India) was correct in her warnings of squat toilets.  Robert and Alan promptly sent me back and I waited for my turn as I stood awkwardly heads and shoulders amongst the locals.  Occasionally I'd catch the eye of some other pale-faced Westerner and we shared a glance that said  'oh god.'

** For those of you who don't know what a squat toilet is, it is sunken toilet seat that is level with your feet.  You put one foot on each side and squat down in order to miss your pants and shoes.  Toilet paper is tossed in a colorful plastic basket nearby.  Then there is the lovely task of picking up the bowl that is floating in a barrel of water next to you and dumping it down the toilet, which moves the water in the basin down the drain.  This is RIGHT where I thanked myself for the forethought to pack Purell Sanitizing Hand Towels (with moisturizers, vitamins A &  E, and Aloe!!!**

Despite the immense amount of wares to be purchased at this market, I was exhausted from my head cold and the heat.  We purchased a few small items from a vendor that Robert met before, an opium pipe and a small Buddha.  We took the sky train back to the hotel where we fattened ourselves at the hotel buffet before retiring to an evening of HBO and our king-size bed.
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