January 6th: What's the capital of Thailand? BANGKOK!

PHEEW! After arriving in Bangkok last night at 1220am their time, the four other Bangladesh interns and I have been seeing everything Thailand has to offer, and now, little more than 12 hours later, I'm on a plane to Kuala Lumpur, continuing my seemingly never ending road-trip. Last night we got to Bangkok and none of us really knew how we were supposed to get to our hotel. We just knew somehow we were getting picked up. Two hours later, after an airport sit-in trying to find an English-speaking shuttle driver, waiting for the tour desk to order one for us, getting pulled over in the shuttle that finally did come pick us up, we pulled into the back alley that housed our erie hotel. There was a lobby the size of a janitor's closet beside a double-sided staircase leading to our rooms. Debrah and I were in one room and two doors over Nick and Evan shared a room. We decided that 2am was nothing when our time zones were so screwed up, and that a night in Bangkok was just what we needed to get the blood pumping to our static legs again. We went down a few streets and found some soccer games playing in two outdoor bars with high-def tvs. (*How do they guard those tvs when they close? I wonder if they even ever do close... hmm. *) One bar wouldn't even feed us and the other hooked us up with some fried rice but no drinks because it was beyond the witching hours of the Thai people. Newsflash: Thai people don't have a witching hour. This is Thailand. If I wanted any kind of drug or sex worker, I could have them at any time. But a beer? Nope. Not after 2.

In the morning, we woke up extra early (7. my decision. pretty sure not the decision any of my co-interns were in support of, but luckily we don't know each other well enough to dispute yet.) so we could go to Bangkok. I knew Becky, my sister, wanted me to get her a fake purse, but the only place I could remember from my freshman year study abroad here was Kaosan Road. On the complete other side of the city. I wanted to show the other interns a few temples on the way and to grab some Western, non-airport food before we got back on track to Dhaka, so in the hour and a half that we had before heading to the airport, I couldn't make it out there. Perhaps I will get some time in my layover home.