sawat dee.

"Sawat Dee", or "Hello" in Thai. While Casey was off on his adventure in the mountains, I was attending a writing workshop for school in Thailand. I went a couple days early with another staff member so we were able to enjoy some of the sights and sounds of Bangkok, some very touristy such as the Original Floating Market.



At the Floating Market we went in a boat, hence the "floating" and could buy souveniers from vendors in other floating boats. Some of the vendors selling tactics included hooking us with a long cane and pulling us towards fruit, hats, statues of Buddha and much more.





One of the best things about Thailand was the fresh food. It was refreshing being able to eat food from any restaurant or street vendor without worrying about getting sick. But no, I didn't eat the chicken, or the dried seafood (below), but I did have my share of phad thai, papaya salad and other yummy Thai dishes.

The fresh fruit was amazing, this is a picture of a rambutan, something that I ate a lot of. In order to eat the soft sweet fruit inside you'd have to peel off the red-soft-spiky skin.

This is the main river that flows through Bangkok. It was so easy to travel around Bangkok with all of the metros, skytrains and river taxis... just a little different than Delhi.

This the Temple Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn) in Bangkok. The decoration on the outside of the Temple is all made of mosaics from recycled tiles, plates, cups and bowls. It was impressive up close and we were able to climb up the steep steps to get good views of the city.

The majority of my time was spent in Pattaya at the workshop. In the free evenings I was able to see the largest transvestite show in the area. Believe it or not the "women" below were once men.

We were able to take a day trip to an island where we swam and I forgot to put sunscreen on my legs, so they are still hurting a little, but it's a cheap souvenir.



It's good to be back at home in Mussoorie, school starts soon and I'm already thinking about our next vacation.