spoke a bit too soon

… about liking bangkok. i appreciate being in a first-world-ish city again, but bangkok just doesn’t leave the same impression on me as it did a month and a half ago. (i will say though that my mood sways depending on who i’m with.) it’s also starting to become high season, which means LOTS AND LOTS of tourists and lots and lots of street hawkers. so much so, that it’s probably easier to get scammed. for instance, one of my friends 2 nights ago was set up by the cops in a scheme in which they took $700 from him.

last night, khao san road (the backpacker road) was packed like i’ve never seen before, with gazillions of street stalls and shops. it was a zoo, and i’m starting to get the sense that the locals here are going to start hassling for money like in vietnam and cambodia, although nowhere nearly as bad. i love that the tuk tuk drivers only hassle me like twice a day instead of like, 50 times a day. i actually miss vietnam though, because it was nowhere like i’ve ever been before. the experience was totally new and different, and definitely harder work and more of an adventure than thailand and lao (2 very friendly countries - the former being a really easy country to travel in).

that said, i think southeast asia in general is pretty easy to travel through and navigate. after having read eli b’s blog post about getting mugged in south africa, this part of asia seems like a piece of cake comparatively. knock on wood, but i haven’t yet gotten anything stolen, although i did lose a bra and a pair of underwear on two separate occasions (story to come later? there isn’t much of one though). it’s a well traversed area, and although asia seems pretty young on the backpacker circuit to most american, it really isn’t very new at all. and as i’ve said many times before, it’s so easy to run into travelers you’ve met at different points along the way in your travels since everyone generally goes to the same places and travels the same route either clockwise or counterclockwise. (for instance yesterday, i randomly ran into my american friend alex who i met a month and a half ago here in this said city. and just today, i ran into my aussie friend who i traveled with in lao.) anyway, the point is, it’s not too difficult.

referring back to eli’s post, i was wondering about the safety of south africa, because two of the guys i had been traveling with are from there. they claim there’s hardly any racism left and that it’s not very dangerous at all apart from jo-berg (they’re from cape town). i suppose i get the same questions too and answer in a similar way about the states and new york. but for some reason, i’m not totally convinced of them 100%, just because they also come from money (and as also mentioned before, they drink tons of alcohol, get wasted nearly every night, and blow money left and right) and yeah, they’re white. one is also conservative and is one of the only people i’ve met on this entire trip who’s rooting for mccain (his mom’s from nevada). screw that.