Hi Everyone!

It's so great to read all of your scraps! I have 19! Whoohoo

My gosh, I don't even know where to begin. So much has happened in two weeks time (is it really only two weeks?). I'll split my story up in a Thai and Cambodian version. So I was flying on the 15th and while it was only half 1 in the Netherlands I already witnessed a beautiful sunrise; local time half 6. My first impression of Thailand (sky perspective): It looks a lot like the Netherlands. Seriously, I thought it was typical Dutch to have the country split up in squares and rectangles. Even Englandhas more exotic look from the airplane!There were only three factors causing doubts to my conclusion 1) the sun was shining, 2) People were driving on the wrong side, 3) Instead of having cows they flood their land with wate. So this is Thailand...

Bangkok is a very nice city to arrive in and to start your travels. It is so very western like. I checked in this very cute Danish Hostel called New Road Guesthouse, but didn't stay that long as all the people sleeping there were Danish and not in the mood to speak any other language than Danish. So the next day I checked out and went to Khao San Road (Backpackers walhalla) and checked in a nice and quiet guesthouse called Sawasdee Banglumphoo Inn (sawasdee is saying hi in Thai). Only it wasn't as quiet as it appeared to be. A reggae bar was attached to it and pumping its speakers till I don't know what time!! But the guesthouse was nice and a good place to explore Bangkok for when my sister arrives. That was saturday. Together we saw a lot of temples and came to the conclusion that temples won't be our highlight on a next trip (yes, they are very beautiful, so are the churches in Europe and I skip those also on my cultural agenda most of the time). So the next day we decided to go and explore the city by foot. Although this sounds relaxing, it is actually quite a challenge. try reading street signs and namessaying something as 'uurrnnrn ururnrnrnn rnrnrnrnn ururnrnrn'. Right.... Don't they know at the municipality that a lot of non-Thai speaking people visit their capital?

Talking about tourism, the Thai have this 'joke' of considering themselves as service minded. Well let me tell you one thing: THEY ARE NOT! Rather they are money minded, does that mean giving some service?? 'aaah allright then, I'll give you minimal service in the 5 words of English that I speak' . This was quite a dissapointed I'd say. You really start to question everyones intentions and when someone is helping without charging money or whatever I'm surprised. btw, this asian version of being service minded does not only go up for Thailand, but for any country in this region for that manner.

So after our attempt to walk around -and use tuktuks to get back to our guesthouse- we decided to go for a swim (I was already spending 4 days in 40 degrees with 100% huminity). There should be a swimmingpool somewhere available to the public right? Well no, there is no such thing. But we heard about a swimmingpool in this D&D hotel at Khao San Road that's also available to non guest and, if you sneak in, you can swim for free! oh yeah, so me and my sis are armed with a bikini and towel and sneak in the hotel. We take the elevator, put our bikini's on in the restroom (so far so good) and as we walk towards the swimmingpool having this facial expression 'yeah we are guests' we hear 'Ticket?', damn! But we weren't allowed to buy a ticket anymore so we spend the saved money on cocktails! great eve!

For next day we booked a tour to see: Floating market, Tiger Temple, and Bridge over River Kwai. This was very nice although very touristy too. Tiger temple should be a rehabilitation centre for tigers, but at the same time people can go on a picture with several of them. I know that these institutions most often drug the dangerous animals so that they do not attack the tourist while posing for a photo. Well, at least they are not slaughtered... Again, we experienced that very nice service minded attitude. We paid premium for the tour and still we needed to pay entrance fee at some stops that weren't even listed on our tour, such as the snake farm. So annoying and very stupid. I now know that I should be reluctant to immediately say yes to these type of tours. After one more nite in Bangkok drinking cocktails together with Jenna (US) we were preparing ourselves for our next stop: Cambodia.

More about this country soon, me and my sis going to the beach now.. Meanwhile, you all can give me an update on your lives!

Hugs and kisses for now!

--Suzanne & Heleen