Kristin and I made it to India this afternoon. It was just a 2 hour flight from Bangkok to Calcutta. The bangkok airport was new, huge, and very impressive. Once here we shared a taxi with a traveling couple from Spain to the main area with guest houses for tourists. It was an eye opening hour ride. The streets were packed with motorbikes, taxis, packed buses, pedal rickshaws, person pulled rickshaws, and an odd cow or two. The traffic appeared chaotic at times, well most of the time. There are no lines on the road and one minute there may be 3 or 4 rows of traffic all going in your direction and the next minute two of those are now traveling in the other direction. Horns are used every few seconds to tell other cars what you are doing or that you don't like what they are doing. Even with all the chaos, heat and humidity, and exhaust no one seemed to be getting particularly angry. We have checked into somewhere with air conditioning, bought a used copy of the latest edition of the India Lonely Planet guide, eaten a little meal, and now are at an internet cafe. We will study up on the book this evening to better plan our time here. We will likely spend a day or two more here and then head north west in the direction of Delhi.
A couple of other updates:
- We sold the VW bus that we drove out west on ebay. Tommy's sister Sara and her fiance Nick did all of the physical work for the storage and sale of the bus. THANKS SO MUCH SARA AND NICK!
- I shaved my beard a week ago before spending a week in the sun at the beach
- We spent a week on an island in Thailand and stayed in a nice bungalow just a few feet from a beautiful bay.
- Kristin ran for one hour straight for the first time ever this weekend in Bangkok!
- Tommy got to play ultimate for the first time since Quito in late January while in Bangkok
- We heard "Lumberton, NC" mentioned on the news and even saw a video of a second or two of Bill Clinton's recent speech from a front porch in town.
- In a single twenty minute walk in Bangkok we past over 12 Seven-Eleven stores. In some places there was more than one on every corner!
- The cheapest beer we could find in Thailand was an 80 cent can of Thai beer, quite disappointing after the price and quality in China and Laos. The next cheapest beer that we could find (a dollar ~22oz beer in a bottle) turned out to be very bad white wine when we took the first surprising sip.
Posts
4 comments:
Went camping with Kim and Brian this weekend, and they told me about your blog. Pretty neat that you're taking this opportunity to travel around the world! Hope everything continues to go well for you both, and hope you continue to see interesting and life changing things.
-Chris
Went camping with Kim and Brian this weekend, and they told me about your blog. Pretty neat that you're taking this opportunity to travel around the world! Hope everything continues to go well for you both, and hope you continue to see interesting and life changing things.
-Chris
like the bullet point format, keep it up. we got a seven eleven story from merle fest. can't wait to see you guys
I want to see some before and after pictures of Tommy getting a shave! When I returned from my semester in India during college, I almost got hit by cars a few times because I was expecting them to use their horn to let me know they were there. There is probably a good business in horn replacements in India, whereas here we hardly break them in. Glad to hear that you enjoyed a week on the beach in Thailand. That is something Beth and I would have loved to do there if we had more time, it is so beautiful. I love reading your stories when you have a chance to write them, but make sure you soak up every last minute of this trip!
Bryan
Post a Comment