Ladyboys

Despite the current political unrest, we are having an amazing stay in Thailand.  Our love of Thailand is no doubt largely due to the small price tag attached to most everything in this country (particularly compared to Australia), but our positive experience is enhanced by the friendly Thai people, the incredible architecture, the country’s natural beauty, and the plethora of tasty cheap eats.  Here’s a few of our most interesting experiences so far…

…
We took a sleeper train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.  The second class sleepers were plenty comfortable for us and we had a decent night’s sleep.  However, we were pretty surprised when we used the train’s bathroom that morning.  We could see through the toilet straight down to the train tracks passing below us.  Then we started to notice all of the toilet paper on the tracks.  That’s right, we had been going to the bathroom right on the tracks.

…
Sticking with the toilet theme, while only some of the public restrooms have toilet paper, most are adorned with a spray hose next to the toilet, kind of like the spray hoses you may find with a kitchen sink.  When in Rome…

…
We both decided that after about 5 months of travel, it was time for some new underwear.  However, finding underwear of an acceptable size was an incredible challenge, particularly for John.  Did we mention that Thai people are freakin’ TINY.  After about 3 days of searching, we finally found an XXXL pair of supposed Calvin Klein’s at a stand on the side of the street in Bangkok.

…
We rented a small motorbike in Chiang Mai for a couple days and drove into the mountains to see some sights and escape the city for a bit.  It’s incredibly terrifying to ride through town on a bike when there doesn’t appear to be any traffic laws.  Lanes are merely suggestions for where you may position your vehicle, cars, tuk tuks, and bikes weave at will among the traffic, and there are no speed limits posted (not that it would have mattered because our bike’s speedometer didn’t work).  It’s incredible to see a family of 5 Thai people seated comfortably on a bike together, none of them wearing a helmet.  We even heard a story of a woman driving a motorbike and eating noodles.

…
We stopped at a small “restaurant” by a crafts market for a tasty $3 lunch.  We were offered Halls cough drops as after meal mints

…
There’s no shortage of places to get a massage.  The roads are literally lined with massage parlors, their staff beckoning you as you walk by.  However, we found it impossible to resist the thai massages provided by convicts at the women’s prison in Chiang Mai.  Actually, the massages occur across the street from the actual prison, but the masseuses are prisoners and the receptionist is a prison guard.  The amount of pain these tiny Thai women can inflict while contorting your body and digging into pressure points is truly amazing.

…
Some Thailand pics are up now too.