Mai gin tooowa (I don't eat peanuts)

We spent the day getting accustom to Thailand yesterday. Drexler had us meet for lunch at 1pm, and we all went to this restaurant down the street. The menu had "appertizers" and pictures of the food, so it was a good baby step into Thai food land :) I got some bland chicken and veggies thing that was peanut free and a lemon frosty, which is not to be confused with a lemon "smooty" :) but lime and lemon are the same word in Thai, and I don't think they really distinguish between the two. Thus, it was more of a lime frosty, but still refreshing. Papa Drex paid the bill, which was about 1500 baht, or 50 dollars, for 8 people. Emilee wants to call him Papa something, cuz he's like our dad in Thailand. We got on a boat to see a snake show and a temple, and spent about 6 hours boating around. Most of the boats' engines were converted car engines, and super intense. I was pondering the purpose of life as we road around in a boat on the canal type thing in Bangkok. We went to the city across the water to see snake shows and a temple, and goodness was it depressing. Before the snake show we walked around at a reject type zoo, which had a lot of animals that were questionably sick or dead. After the snake show was over, the announcer tried to coax the audience to give the snake trainer guys tips, and he said "they don't do this because they want to, because they have to" and it was sad. But, a guy did put a cobra in his mouth in just the right place so he couldn't get bitten. These people who hound tourists for a living and barely get by....they believe that racking up karma points will prove useful in the end.....I dunno, it's just empty.



The monkey doesn't like me :(

While on the boat, we were given the pleasure of seeing the stark contrast of living conditions in and around Bangkok. There were shacks that had been suspended above the water next to beautiful buildings with glass pane windows. We journeyed to a temple after that, which was super tall, and to climb the steps was terrifying. All I could think of while climbing the steep steps and clinging to the handrail was that my mother (who is afraid of heights) never could have climbed it. I didn't want to go all the way up, but some Australian tourist looked at me, and was like "let's go," so I was shamed into climbing all the way up with him.
Once at the top, I felt like I was on top of the Eiffel Tower....only in Thailand :) The view was beautiful. An English speaking couple who was possibly Indian watched us climb down first before they braved following.
After getting back to the street we're staying at, some of us bolted for our beds, and others were wanting food. I fell asleep around 8pm (I'll blame jet lag), and skipped the sketchy street food. Sorry about the lack of pictures. It's not uploading them very well.