Mektila

To avoid another 10 hour bus ride between and Kalaw (where the treks to Inle Lake start), we decided to stop at Mektila for a night. After getting off the bus around lunch time and shopping around for a place to stay (tip: staying in a room with a shared bathroom cuts the prices in half) we walked around town aimlessly. During our day of wandering, we met some Israelis (the only other tourists we encountered), got lost, played a game similar to caroms or pool with some toothless (for lack of good dental health, not age) men, and otherwise just enjoyed the atmosphere of the town.

Closer to sunset, Roi was taking a nap while I headed to the Internet cafe to upload pictures and email people when I spotted some guys in their 20s playing Chen-Lo, a game like hacky-sack with a woven bamboo ball. After a moment of hesitation, I asked if I could join. The next 45 minutes or so were spend alternatively playing terribly or impressing them (and my self) with some acrobatic kicks.

That night we sat down for dinner at a tea house where an Indian man was frying malawach (by a different name of course). We ate 5, dipping pieces in lentils, chutney, or just sugar. But more interestingly, an 82 year old man joined us. He drank and ate with us, all the while having a mostly pantomimed conversation with us (while the rest of the staff stood around our table, watching and finding excuses to move dishes around the table, thereby justifying their staring at us). After dinner, he walked us back to our guesthouse and we said our goodbyes.

1 Day in Bangkok

My hostel in Bangkok was way out of the city center - 20 minutes by taxi (which is thankfully still about 6 dollars) and very far from anybody who speaks English. This, combined with my jetlag from the full day of travelling led me to go to sleep at 8:00 my first night in Bangkok.

The next morning, I breakfasted with 4 Hungarian students and their professor going to study Sanksrit in Cambodia for a month, and then headed out to town. A pickup truck, 2 trains, and a boat ride later, I was finally at Wat Arun (The Temple of the Dawn), the first Buddhist temple I actually walked in and around.

I was immediately amazed by the number of golden Buddhas, the pagodas, the statues, etc.  Maybe I'll make a post about my thoughts about temples in general later.  This temple in particular features a huge prang up which you can climb about half-way.  The steps are about 2 feet high and 6 inches deep, making the climb very precarious.

It's good that I started with Wat Arun, because Wat Pho was even more spectacular.  Wat Pho features a 45m long reclining golden Buddha, one of the main attractions in Bangkok.  This Buddha had black feet with mother of pearl inlays depicting some 108 attributes of the Buddha.  As soon as I had left this main attraction though, I stumbled upon a school in the back of the temple.  At one point I found myself sitting in single file like with 20 kids between 4 and 8 years old and clapping along as some kids performed some nursery rhyme and dance (before starting to dance Gangnam Style).  I couldn't stop smiling.  Wat Pho is also said to be the first university in Thailand, with medical, agricultural, spiritual knowledge engraved on stone tablets and inset into the walls. In particular, there were statues depicting ways to stretch and meditate, and (not-so-safe-for-work) pictures explaining the pressure points on the human body.  Lastly, all of the gates at Wat Pho are flanked by statues of different sorts of characters; one of these is The Westerner, with a top hat, huge eyes, fat lips, and dressed like a dandy. It's pretty funny to see eastern caricatures of us for a change.

At this point, it's about 5:00pm and I have nowhere to go. I wander to the park, and spot a girl alone reading and English-language guide to Bangkok. I say hello, we hop on the back of a tuk-tuk (a motorcycle-drawn cart), and soon we're walking up the Golden Mountain. We get lost, eat quail eggs, I buy a shirt, and we finally find ourselves in the most touristy street in the world: every other building is a hostel or a bar, all of the signs are in English (or Hebrew - there's a Chabad there too), and everybody wants to sell you food, clothes, a massage, or a tuxedo.  After a long day's walking, Sarah (it took us about this long to exchange names) and I decide to let fish eat the grime off our feet for 15 minutes - not something I'm eager to do again.  When I get back from Myanmar, I think I'll get a proper Thai foot massage.

Tomorrow (yesterday as of this writing), I leave to Myanmar, a country with at least one ATM.

Webpages that may or may not be relevant:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/108_(number)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prang_(architecture)

Lost in Bangkok

I took a taxi to my hostel in Bangkok and was ready to start exploring - so I began to walk. I had no clue where I was going or in which direction I was walking, but I decided I would try to head generally toward the tourist center (which is quite far). I did manage to find ice cream pretty quickly. After wandering for a while, I saw a couple locals waiting at the bus stop an decided to wait with them. When they hailed a covered pickup truck sherut sort of thing and got on, I joined them. We cruised around for 10 minutes or so and everybody gets off at a metro station, so I do too.

Now I'm totally lost, so I walk around for a bit and jump on a bus, which just takes me to the neat metro stop before they kick me off. I eat lunch, buy DEET, and keep wandering.

At this point, I see hundreds of kids in uniform leaving a school, and I walk towards it. Next to the school is a beautiful temple; though I was taken aback, this temple isn't even on the list on my map application, leaving me ever for the ones that are. Writing this on my phone doesn't allow me to caption or inline images - forgive me.

At some point I ended up in a very poor part of town, and decide it was time to hail a cab an head back.

Some things I noticed:
The food you can buy on the street looks as though it has been sitting out for days. Eating at the mall, my first meal in Thailand was Japanese. The city (not the nice part mind you) generally smells of waste and/or feces. Nobody speaks English, which, combined with the fact that it is still developing, makes me feel like a British imperialist. It is hot in this city.

Also - I washed some clothes and discovered that Bangkok has a nice planetarium.