Bangkok!

Bangkok is indeed quite chaotic and very hot. First day, I go to visit the super malls. Which are indeed rather super. The first one I couldn't make heads or tales of. There were escalators, passages, balconies and it was just like a maze of shit begging for your attention. The second one was even bigger, but had the regular American neat layout to it. Went to see a Thai movie about the patriotic struggle of a few Thai fighters against the Burmese some 1000 years ago. Then went to see Avatar in 3D, in comparison to which the first film seemed like a home video. Rather liked Avatar, very pretty movie.

I go to see ALL the temples. I saw a 40 meter tall standing Buddha, 43 meter long reclining one and a 40 meter tall pagoda. One temple was prettier than the next. At some point I dropped my guard and decided that maybe this person was actually nice and find myself out of 30 euros and on a shitty boat trip that drops me in the middle of nowhere. I walk back, go and find all the people that sold me that crap, and tell them I thought it sucked.. which didn't help in any big way. Oh and I also went to see the Palace! The King is popular beyond belief in Thailand and this place is very sacred. Even though it is 40 degrees you have to wear shoes, long pants and long sleeves. There I also saw the arguably the most famous Buddha image in the world: the emerald Buddha. I had read alot about this relatively small image and it was quite pretty. The Emerald Buddha has been moved 5 times I believe since it was found by some dude. Lao conquered it a couple of times and it has been moved in Thailand a couple of time as well. It also changes outfit 3 times a year.

At my favorite restaurant I meet a British guy, with whom I have a rather inspiring conversation about carreer etc (he was 30 and had already gone through the proces of deciding what to do after traveling).

Go to a HUGE market which is reputed to have 20.000 stalls and indeed it is quite the chaos.

Go to the infamous Wat Mahatat temple. This is where an exchange with my grand hero of Buddhism (Mahasi Sayadaw) took place. It's also the location of the international meditation centre. Now I don't need anymore instruction I believe, or not for the moment, but I wanted to attend a Dhamma talk. When I get there I'm told that there will be none in English while I'm in Bangkok. The meditation teacher (who studied in the States) tells me I can ask him anything though. This turns into a very interesting and open discussion of about 2 hours. A key thing concerning myself that comes out (again) is that I have the discipline, but still lack some patience :P Very interesting to have an exchange with someone who is on the same road as I am, after having been on it alone again for the last few months. One of the students the teacher is teaching is a German girl and I go out to dinner with her that night. Also go see some temples with her next day.

Today I went to work out at the best gym I've ever been to. It had two floors and every imaginable machine and facility. Then went to China town, which was unsurprisingly like China town anywhere. Get the best massage I've had on my trip as well.

I've gone out almost every night here at the backpacker capital of the world: Khao San rd. Had some interesting adventures, met some nice people and some not so nice people (mainly Asian girls ignoring my attemts to talk to them) :P Khao San rd deserves seperate mentioning. It is always crowded with backpackers, it is covered in bars and clubs, covered in people trying to sell you stuff and both ends have a veritable army of Tuk Tuks and taxi's waiting to take you anywhere, but preferably to boom boom massage happy ending, or 'ping pong show'.

Bangkok is covered in police, military and political activists. I have to admit that I didn't read up too much on the political situation, but apparently there is a huge movement (all dressed in red, sporting such slogans as "truth today!" (which is hard to disagree with for anyone :P)) which is protesting against the military regime. I heard that two days ago the demonstraters wanted to go to Khao San road, but the military stopped them, after all.. do not fuck with the tourist industry.

I'm probably going to head to Wat Mahatat tomorrow to meditate the whole day, while I wait until it is time to go to the airport (flight leaves at 00:20).

PS: pictures will be up later.
PS2: I also went to a couple of Thai Boxing matches. The crow members, who are all betting, go totally nuts. it's quite a cool sort to watch, except for the human suffering part of course.