the title of this blog still holds true

still STDfrEE after thailand <-- new pictures!! as i sit here with my fresh bag of crispy Spicy Curry flavored Chachos, i cant help but revel in the glory of the fact that i am, still, free of STDs, as the name of my blog states. and this too, after returning from a week in Thailand, where i saw more prostitutes than you can possibly count. not that i'm particularly proud of this, as if anything less were expected, but i'll probably get a free screening back at uconn, just to be safe... so last saturday we left for bangkok from singapore for a week...what we were hoping would be 5 or 6 people was whittled down to two people, myself and Thuy, for a weeklong trip to Thailand. to be honest, despite the setbacks in the planning stages and Noura not being able to come, we still managed to make it a great trip, which im quite happy about. saturday night we arrived in bangkok after quite a flight. we flew Tiger Airways, and both me and Thuy swore we'd never fly it again. when in reality, it wasnt the pilot's fault, the turbulence during the entire flight made it feel like we were basically on our way down right from the start. every time the intercom came on, me and Thuy looked at each other and listened for the "you're all going to die", but instead it usually turned out to be "we're ok, you can take off your seat belts now". needless to say, the flight was definitely a bit scary, but we made it through. i suppose we were warned when our flight left from a different terminal than the rest of the airport...
upon arriving in bangkok, we took a taxi to khao san, the backpackers' street, and hung around our hostel for the night. what is a running trend im finding in a lot of southeastern asian cities is the development of an area geared towards backpackers, like ourselves. often, a street or even two will be full of hostels and a market-type atmosphere with lots of people day and night, and its pretty much awesome. It makes it really easy to find a place to stay and its definitely got a good vibe. and, of course, its cheap and a great value for the prices you pay for places to stay. saturday night was spent here, browsing some of the shops and stalls, and of course, eating. everywhere you looked on this street was a pad thai cart, which was incredible (and cheap, 60 cents a heaping serving :)

sunday and monday, we roamed around bangkok quite a bit. sunday was spent at the famous Chatuchak weekend market, which is renowned to be one of the biggest ever. estimates put the market at or around 10000 stalls...needless to say, we didnt get around to seeing them all. however, i did do some of the requisite souvenir shopping here and, stupidly, was forced to lug it all around for the ensuing 7 days. the rest of the day was spent walking around another part of bangkok and ending up at a beeeaauuttiiiffuulll park (Lumphini park) where we took a rowboat out onto the lake they had there, ate some cotton candy, and listened to the outdoor orchestra play for a while. simply stunning to see such a beautiful place in the middle of bangkok, totally unexpected.

Monday we made visits to the temples that were scattered around a small area in bangkok. these were absolutely gorgeous temples, it was weird to see them so close to the rest of the city. Wat Arun, Wat Pho and Wat Phra Koew were their names. this is Wat Pho from a distance.

inside one of the temples lies the famous "reclining buddha". This is a Buddha statue about 150 feet long and about 15 feet high. the angle on the picture just doesn't do it justice...it was amazing..


later that day, we spent some time around the backpacker street again, this time roaming a little further from home and exploring the area. we found a bar that was essentially a Shell gas station, just abandoned and with tables set up everywhere...weird thing was, they left all the stuff still up (although im sure there was no gas actually running through the station, but all the pumps were still up, the canopy and the Shell sign were. certainly an interesting sight, to say the least.

tuesday morning, we took our flight from bangkok to phuket, an island on the southwestern coast of thailand. our intentions were not to stay here however. we immediately found a ferry to take us to the island of koh phi phi, one of the more popular islands off the coast of phuket. we stayed there for three nights. the days were spent either lounging on the beach, going on a boat tour of the area, snorkelling, or sitting inside while it was raining. save the last day, the stay on the island was very enjoyable, especially the food :) the island itself was quite touristy, but we were prepared for that before we got there.




from koh phi phi, we headed back to phuket on friday morning. we stayed on the west coast of the island in an area known as Patong, which is a highly developed area with a nice coastline. the place reminded me of the street we stayed on in bangkok with all the hostels and restaurants/bars and lights at night. This was the place that we saw the most prostitutes, i'd say, although they get around to coming out of their caves around 6 or 7, after dusk. i undertook a mini-mission, to see if i could even attract their attention without being too forward about it..turns out you need to be a middle-aged slightly balding white man to even get them to look at you. a young, not balding indian kid isnt really gonna do the trick. :(

saturday morning came around quite quickly after a long day in patong, and we headed back home. our flight was delayed for about 45 mins, but with the budget airlines, theres never any telling how exactly your trip is going to go. all i know is, im alive now, and i suppose thats better than the alternative.

instead of a funny picture, i leave you with something slightly more impressive this time. on the island, we saw a fire show, which was absolutely spectacular. after fiddling with my camera for about half the show, i managed to get some amazing shots of the performers, and this was one of the better ones. the light exposure basically was just longer, so not only does the fire show nicer, but you can see the person moving inside the ring...i thought this was awesome, personally.