Memories of Thailand

So as I sit here at Starbucks watching my battery drain, i figure I’ll go through my notes and write some of the observations I've made.

• Weed in Thailand is punishable by death penalty (both smoking and selling). How did I come to know that? A few times as we got into a taxi, the smell of weed unrepentantly hit my nostrils, but surprisingly taxis was the only place it happened in. I thought taxi drivers were the dealers, but asking around I came to know that they use it to stay awake… so you have a sleep deprived taxi driver high off his ass driving you around in the chaos of Thai traffic, all the while being scared for his life. Awesome.
  
• The city is very very clean… no one litters (besides tourists) and in two weeks I saw just 1 (ONE) animal poop outside. But. And it makes little sense to me, there are no garbage bins. The garbage bags are dumped into piles on the side of the street, which just sits there, fermenting and rotting in the sun for a day or two before collected. The garbage run-offs stink for 30 meters in every directions and god forbid you step the run-offs, might as well buy new shoes.


• Victoria monument is one of the most important statues in Bangkok and no one knows it by that name. There is a local name for it (Anu soli chaa)… which bothers the hell out of me. Who the hell made up a name that no one knows or uses?
  
• Not much of an observation, but in two weeks I saw only one Thai guy – gainjin girl couple and countless gaijin guy – Thai girl couples. (gaijin = foreigner)
  
• Manual labor is SUPER cheap and so is everything that comes with it. Massages are cheap, security guards are cheap (there are nearly as many security guards as there are lamp posts), taxi are cheap and plentiful (though only in Bangkok), farmed goods are exceedingly cheap (both fruits and fish), textiles are cheap… which makes me wonder, what’s the REAL Thai unemployment rate.
  
• Water is a hit and miss from hotel to hotel (or maybe even from room to room). Some hotels reek of rotten eggs some are fine. I had assumed there is a volcano or something (methane deposits), you know that volcanic smell? However, I’ve been told that the water is clean, but the pipes are very old. Great combo.
  
• Nail clipper is 50B pedicure is 150B.. you do the math.
  
• My feet are different sizes, which made buying sandals very difficult. My right foot is either cricked, lump sided, or just bent. I made it a point to get custom made shoes once I get back.
  
• Hot sand massage lead to another self-discovery. On my back, left side is either more sensitive, or my right side is atrophied. All i know is when i was getting a hot sand massage, I was squirming in pain every time the bag touched me on the left, while the temperature of the sand inside the bag obviously had not changed.
  
• Electrical wires in Thai are like their driving, very chaotic. There are practically no straight power lines. I have no clue how it all works, cause every single power pole looks like a knitting ball after being attacked by an army of kittens.
  
• Yumi has conflicting feelings about this, so I’ve put it at the end. I have a global female rating system based on a number of girls I consider cute from a 100 random girls I see on a street. Before coming to Thai, I spent a few days navigating google images, but rarely came across an attractive girl. It’s been buggin me and after a week in Thai I came up with a theory (Blink helped here). Again, my perspective. The reason I don't find them attractive, is they look neanderthalian. Their eyes are deep-seated, which creates an illusion of a protruded forehead, as if they had a lobotomy, looking like a neanderthal. I tested that theory by comparing girls with haircuts that exposed their foreheads vs. ones that covered it. The results support my theory, I found girls with haircuts covering forehead much more attractive than these with exposed foreheads.
  

That’s it for now.

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