Due to leave South-east Asia in a few hours, I wanted to see if there was anything else I could squeeze out of my mind about this place and our experience here. We have been without TV since 2004, yet we read the newspaper somewhat regularly to get updated. It is unknown to us how you people in America are coping with that President, and Iam not sure even if we really want to know. But if there is anything you would like to vent out do leave it in the comments. When we first arrived in Thailand, we were impressed with its modernity and was a relief for a while from the dirt and clutter of India. For a while I was even unsure if I would recommend people to go to India instead of coming to Thailand, but as we started travelling my thoughts started to change. In Ko Lanta, first place we visited outside Bangkok, it started to become obvious what was missing here that India had alot more. The island of Lanta is filled with nice tourist places, much nicer than Goa in India, but other then the beach there is nothing there. Whereas in Goa when you dive inland there is a sense of purpose beyond tourism industry, of just life as it is. Thailand being so open to tourism with its natural beauty is sort of like an inflated balloon, much on the surface yet hallow inside. All in all it is still worth seeing, more for the food then anything else, but I can guarentee if you wanted to come to a beach for a few weeks and take it easy while eating good food (albeit not for cheap) Thailand is superb. Yet in Bangkok the street stalls with stuff on sticks, noodles and shakes has been our greatest pleasure. We have been doing very little shopping as we don't have a house to shop for, but using the malls to cool off. Our last memorable experience in Thailand was last night as we delibarated for an hour and a half in if $5 was too much to pay for a T-shirt or not. After walking around that long and giving ourselves a backache we finally snapped out of it and got two rockin T-shirts just as the last and best T-shirt stall set up. Then we proceeded to our Chee-Wan #3 joint where we had our luminecent cocktail and finally for the third night in a row to our favorite Tom-Yum stall, where we thought we would get one Tom-Yum for the memory of it. After we had our third bowl and hopefully making some history, we vanished into the alley across.
alp alcazar isin II
1 comment:
Dearest Alp and Ingie,
It seems a lot of U Penn folk will be in Pune this summer for the U Penn in India program. Also, a few Sanskrit folk will be there too for the AIIS Sanksrit program. I have given a few people your email address, and I hope that you can meet up. I can't wait to read what you will have to say after getting back to India.
On another note, L&W brought "Turkist Star Wars" to my attention. Information should be readily available by searching for those terms in any search engine. We are all wondering if this was as foundational an influence on Alp's character as (American) Star Wars was for us. Indeed, there is a blonde beauty that the good guy warrior must save and who somewhat resembles Ingie.
We miss you!
W
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