HELLOOO from the future! It is about 9:30pm here (on Saturday the 20th!) and i am pooped! such a long day and long travel trip yesterday! but fear not, bridget and i were up and at 'em at 8am this morning since we only had 24hrs in bangkok! and what a day it was! we saw two temples (with the emerald Buddha at the Grand Palace and the largest reclining buddha in Wat Po) and got hour long massages at the massage school at one of the temples! then of course we had a loverly lunch on the river and then hoped on a boat to tour the river some. we braved public transit on their high speed rail to the largest bangkok market and then hoofed it back to the hotel in time to meet with the rest of the group by 6pm! so we're just now returning from a group dinner. there are 4 other people on the trip, all from london, plus our guide, who is from cambodia. the group so far seems good. hopefully we'll all have a great time together over the next few weeks!
flying into hong kong was so exciting! i was newly on an uncharted continent (for me)!! the hills were surprisingly close to the runway, and they were cloaked in this romantic, mysterious fog. when flying out the fog had lifted, but night had fallen, so i could see the islands beneath and see how lush many of them looked! i'm really intrigued... can't wait to explore on my layover on the return flight. i have a feeling i'm going to love it: a perfect blend of the sophistication and cosmopolitan allure of NYC but with the access to nature and outdoors life SF... we shall see...
but for the here and now, in general my impressions of bangkok have been varied: it is quite dirty, but it still retains some charm underneath. it somehow reminds me a little of ocho rios, lusaka, and paris combined! ocho rios and lusaka for the low height "city" buildings and homeless dogs running around, as well as for the vegetation and squalor; but paris because of grande alleys and detailed balustrades and tree lined streets. the architecture of the temples has been fascinating! and the colors spectacular. the tiles that adorn many of the buildings are all such rich colors and the detail is so labor intensive! surreal... tomorrow we head to more temples, but in cambodia! siem reap is our next stop, which is where Angkor Wat is (the Buddhist equivalent to St. Peter's... kinda a big deal!) we'll be there for about 2 days before our next jaunt. on the agenda is a sunrise tour of the behemoth temple! can't wait! can't you imagine the silhouette that beauty will have on the skyline??? yay!
ok! bridget's turn on the computer!! were leaving here at 7:30am tomorrow... yikes!
thanks for all of your loving emails. i think of all of you a ton (yeah, i know, it's only been like a day!) ha.