its saturday morning, I just had breakfast. The guest house has a restauant and the french toast is excellent. Im learning to translate between baht and US dollars quickly and I finally have "Hello" and "Thank You" in Thai memorized.

Erwin and I went around the city yesterday, we checked out Khao San Road of course. During the day its like a big saturday market. The weather was warm and cloudy. We checked out a park that is next to a large river that runs through the city. It was fast moving and had a good amount of trash along the side. There are long skinny boats there with automobile engines mounted on the back. two children were diving off the edge of the walkway and into the river.

Ive noted some small differences in living here. at the hotel when I get a fruit shake, it comes with a real, beautiful orchid-like flower in the top. it struck me because it wasnt plastic, and it may not even be safe to put in a drink :), but they dont give up beauty for safety.

most of the restaurants dont have a front wall, but rows of tables that step down to the street. so every table has a view of the road and its as warm inside as outside.

many streets have homeless dogs and cats. the cats are particularly malnourished. the animals are alsa amazingly mellow. they havent been spayed and they're probably hungry but they dont bother anyone. they just lie in the street and alertly watch the world go by. they are often allowed in entryways/lobbies. one effect this has is the reminder of the existance of animals. they're always there and it feels a bit closer to nature.

we saw two temples yesterday, led by a tuk-tuk driver. every driver will try and take you to a clothing shop or jewlerly shop and charge you $0.50 instead of $4 because they get gas/etc from that shop. one temple was 'standing buddah' with a 50ft tall statue of the buddah. there were roosters running around the yard. we also went to the temple on the mountain where we could see most of bangkok.

anyways were going to rent the room for another night. tomorrow or monday elwin is going to a city west of here where "the bridge over the river kwai" was filmed. im going to try to meet up with an english girl i met on the plane.