Last Monday's Post

Kipp and I are back in Bangkok for one night before going to Vietnam. Singapore was interesting-- polite British-sounding English but very few white people, non-diverse neighborhoods (arab-, india- and chinatown), impressive buildings, lots of ship traffic, and a river festival at night. Hanoi feels even grittier than Bangkok. But, my blog's out of date now. Here's what happened a week ago:

On Monday, we walked through Bangkok's Chinatown, had another suit fitting, ate some fairly good Thai food, and boarded an overnight bus to southern Thailand.

For lunch we tried a restaurant from our guidebook. We tried meekrab (fried noodles with meat lemon sauce) and a chicken dish. It was fairly good-- better than street vendor food. Kipp really liked meekrab, surprisingly.

I chose fabric for a suit (grey) and some shirts. I hope these come out well.

The chinatown seemed more crowded than Chinatowns I've seen in the US-- slightly more so than most Bangkok streets.

We booked an overnight bus through a travel agent. Thai travel agents are Government-run (the Tourist Authority of Thailand), so there's a standard for service and less scamming.

We waited at the nearby train station for a bit before boarding the bus. As in every other business here, there were large posters of the King. Also, there are 7-11s on nearly every street.

Many of the people on the bus were British, and some were Australian. Young backpackers don't get much of a sophistication boost from having a British accent.