Adventure of the month

My last day in Bangkok was spent wandering around the labyrinth that is Chinatown. I went there for two reasons. One: this is one of the few areas of the city that I had not devoted any time to and Two: I had to check out the Hell Money. I had read in my guidebook about an alley named Soi Itsaranuphap in the heart of Chinatown where you find a line of shops selling fake money, issued from the Bank of Hades and household goods made of paper. Chinese Buddhists will purchase these, take them to the temples and burn them so that their loved ones who have passed on can receive them in the afterlife. As far as unusual religious practices go, you've got to admit, this one is a doozy. What I found in that alley was even better than I could have hoped for. Not only did they have cash in just about every denomination, size and color, they had every comfort and luxury items you could think of. You could get a Mercedes (with a driver, of course), a computer (PC only, somehow Steve Jobs ...

As you may have already seen, last Thursday had my friends and I hanging out with some rather large kitties. This was actually just one part of our three-in-one sightseeing tour. The tour, which began at the unfortunate hour of 6:30 am took us to the floating market about one hour outside of Bangkok, where we had the opportunity to take a boat ride and gawk at tourists gawking at old ladies in big straw hats. We, ourselves, were given some rather large sombreros to wear, but this did not seem to result in anyone gawking in our general direction. After floating through the market and sampling the aquatic equivalent of street food, we were off to the province of Kanchanaburi , for our second scheduled activity. This was a visit to the River Kwai and more importantly to the bridge which spans across it. At first I felt a bit guilty about never having seen the movie, read the book, or even possessing any strong feelings towards this Bridge, but after seeing how no one in our group seemed ...