Arrival

And Jeremy has arrived - Thailand will never be the same. I am here.

For documentary purposes, here is a picture of what I looked like prior to leaving.



After 17 hours locked away in a flying metal compartment, in which the sky transformed from light to dark to light to dark again - I finally stepped foot in Bangkok and the adventure has officially begun at approximately 4:30 PM local time. You know how at sporting events, they sometimes do those dizzy bat contests in which the participant first (optional) chugs a can of beer, then places there hand down on a bat, and spins round and round in circles, only to then attempt to run a straight line. That is kind of what Jet Lag is like. Having thought that getting limited sleep on Friday night (approx 3 hours) would lead to an easily time sleeping on the plane - well, that turned out to be somewhat of a poor idea afterall. While I slept intermittenly on a plane (roughly 3 different naps ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours), I did not sleep as long as I would have planned, and I began to get a bit delirious in the final few hours. To further escalate the pyschedelic state, I listened to Dark Side of Moon two times over prior to landing.

However, upon landing in Bangkok - I got my second wind, and I had an easy time going through immigration, grabbing a Red Bull (maybe that was the source of the second wind?), and hailing a cab to Khao San Road - the backpacker capital of the world. I checked into the D&D Inn - which coincidental is smack dab in the middle of the backpacker world capital, locked up my stuff in my smallish hotel room, and began to explore. Khao San Road has just about everything you could ever need - guest houses, bars, internet cafes, street vendors, jewelry and tattoo parlors and massage parlors. I grabbed a Pineapple-Mango-Passionfruit smoothie, and sat down for a bit to take it all in. While relaxing, I was approached by at least 10 people ranging from the age of 4 through 65 with offers of hats, lighters, massages, tattoos, stuffed animal monkeys, and paintings for sale. I ignored most of them, but then decided that getting my eyebrow pierced and a tattoo on my upper back would help me fit in more. So, here is a picture of what I look like now - approximately 2.5 hours after arriving.

No - just kidding. I didn't manipulate my body in any way, shape, or form. That is actually a picture of Khao San Road, with my gueshouse, D&D Inn prominately displayed amongst the chaos. I didn't follow the tattoo guys, instead I took up the offer of the cute Thai massuese, figuring that getting a traditional Thai massage (1 hour for 250 baht ($10) seemed like a reasonable idea after sitting prone on the plane for 17 hours - so I accomplied my gracious thai hostess to Charlie's Massage, in which I was then twisted, prodded, poked, and bent for one whole glorious hour.


So, there you have it. I have made it safely to Thailand - all worriers can breathe a sigh of relief, and everything so far is just groovy. And with that, I now plan on doing one more venture up and down this road, and then finally crashing in a real bed for the first time in nearly 3 days. It is now 9:15 PM. Plan tomorrow is to explore Bangkok itself, and not just the area where all the backpacker tourist hang out.