Bangkok!

I've been traveling for a week now and have finally arrived in Bangkok, via Hartford and New Haven, CT, Baltimore, DC, NYC and Newark, Stockholm, and finally Kuala Lumpur. On the way I got to see KTF graduate and to meet some really nice nutritionististas and their families (and some whacked out ones too), and to see the Cardinals smack down the Nationals 6-0 in two consecutive games. It was a great stateside portion of my vacation and now begins the southeast Asian portion.
I'm staying just off Khou San road, which is the gajinal infection Mark warned me about. My House Guesthouse is mostly white tourists but not in the middle of things, more off to the side and quiet. I have my own room and shower which is totally unexpected. Its one of those bathrooms where the shower head is above the toilet and the whole floor drains, so its not like you can leave anything you want in the bathroom- especially toilet paper which I had to buy for about 30 cents from the front desk. It's clean and I'm probably likely to switch to a group room when Mark arrives. This was all they had, and while its nice to have privacy and sleep when you want, the group hostel room forces you to be social and right now I'm not being that at all. Mark's blog says he's in Thailand, up north I guess but gives no indication of when he might arrive here.
I slept suprisingly well on my flights, I had a sweet exit row seat, decent food, and some good conversations with Jonathan, a Canadian-educated, Australian-dwelling, Malaysian guy of Chinese descent. He was 23, a frequent traveler and was even taller than me so we were loving the exit row. I caught up on sleep here with a nap when I arrived, but was wide awake at 4 AM to watch a thunderstorm and read until about 6 AM when I fell back asleep for an hour. KTF hooked me up with some good books, I'm almost done with Mystic River so I might have to do some book shopping if my weird jetlag/insomnia continues.
Today I hired a tuk tuk for some sightseeing at the advice of some nice Thai guys. This city has a load of English speakers, at least at a rudimentary level. I've met more people with minimal English today than I did my entire time in China. Its nice, but I'm getting lazy and not learning any Thai yet. This driver takes you in his motorized, three-wheeled cart down side streets and whizzes you through traffic and suddenly you arrive at a hidden temple. I saw several of these, then did a perfunctory tour of a jewelry scam run by the government called the Export Exchange I think. If you spend 20 minutes inside, the tuk tuk driver gets a gas coupon. These things are in demand as gas here is apparently more pricey than in Europe and the US. I spent my 20 minutes admiring rubies and sapphires in the $500-10,000 price range knowing fullly that I'd never fork over almost the whole cost of my plane ticket for some ring. They didn't know this, of course, so I accepted the free tea and oohed and aahed at the (admittedly beautiful) jewelry while keeping an eye on my watch. The tuk tuk ride was 40 bhat, almost exactly $1. I have spent less than $15 US so far on two days of food, lodging, and transportation. This is SWEET.
At each of the temples, you remove your shoes and enter an incense-filled chapel to Buddha. All the shrines had gifts of food and other things near the Buddha statues, quite funny when you are in this ornate temple area and there is tupperware next to the gold statues surrounded by candles. There are also excessive numbers of cats around, some lounging on the ground, some roaming and all looking pretty healthy. I read a description finally in English of one statue and then knew why the lingering kitties- a common sacrifice to the Buddha is fish heads. Little fat cats must LOVE that Buddha.
I"m still new here, haven't explored much yet but I plan to fill the next 2 days with seeing Bangkok inside and out before heading to the islands. I'm also caught up just a bit in reading online about the drama in New Orleans. I wonder if the aid and assistance will pour into these people? I wonder if it matters that most of them are poor and black? I sure hope not, it will be interesting to see how it unfolds. My friend Darren is safe, he's the only person I know living there. He, his girlfriend, and brother evacuated with another person or two and several dogs to Mississippi. They expected to return to their homes and perhaps work at the hospital after the storm, but are now back in St. Louis. The hospital and their whole home area are flooded, perhaps destroyed, and they are weeks or months away from returning but, as Darren said, they are safe and things are just things.
Funny, I'm here where the tsunami wiped out a significant portion of land and population and at home a similar event has occurred. I hope the US is able to rebound at the same level that Thailand has apparently achieved.