It's my second day in Thailand and I've already left the big city. I spent 24 hours after my arrival awake, moving, eating, staring, and tuk tuking. logan's wife sandy picked me up at the airport and brought me to the apartment in a cab at 2am and promptly took me out for some pad see ew with Logan. He suggested an extra egg on top and the chili ketchup and I followed suit and was very happy I did. The food here is amazing. Pick the street stand with a hundred Thai people waiting in line and make conversation with the little old lady serving and you will get a huge plate of delicious mish mash. Ask no questions. Eat everything on the plate. Or at least that's been my MO so far!

After food I went back to the apartment, right by the Victory Monument sky train stop and read the guide book until 6am untill I couldn't wait anymore. I dressed and hit the sky train at 7 heading for the river. The river buses at that hour are empty and I had a gorgeous ride up to tha tien and the old city. The ferry stop is a tiny wooden shack where the flood waters have made the river so swollen you walk on boards that are partially submerged, ducking your head to avoid the trinkets hanging from the low ceiling. I hopped a one stop ferry to wat arun, the dawn temple, and climbed to the top. It was almost empty, only one family of Chinese tourists there. The decorations on the temple are made from broken china plates, tea cups, and other miscellaneous shards shaped into flowers.gorgeous.

After wat arun I went back across the river to watt po, also deserted so early in the morning. The enormous reclining Buddha is incredible and I bought e coin offerings you drop in the buckets along the back wall that make a rhythmic plinking as tourist walk down the line. Most important part of wat po was the hour long Thai massage with an 100 year old woman pushing, pulling, walking on me, and putting me in a full Nelson for the sake of therapy.

I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the old city, strolling through the park, got turned away from the grand palace since I was in a tank top, walked through the port side markets (didn't eat there since I saw one of the chefs sneezing into his wares), went to the famous backpackers alley which was a disappointing assortment of mcdonalds, cheap shirts, and tattoo parlors. I switched gears and took a tuk tuk to Chinatown and stopped at every food cart, walked down every scary alleyway, and generally had a ball. I met another American girl walking te streets a,one and we sat down at one of the sidewalk restaurants and made an agreement to meet later to see the Red light district together. And so we did. I think (since this is a work trip)I'll leave out the details except to say that thesse woman have exceptional aim with darts...

Finally. Finally. At 1am, one full day after I arrived, I went home and slept.

Day two was taken at a slower pace. I visited the exceptional coffee stand on my street corn ere where she makes fresh espresso on the sidewalk and ate at the local hole in the wall. I tried to go gem shopping near Silon but failed, and giving up found myself at the Jim Thompson house early enou to take the tour. Its beautiful and everyone talks about him like a god. His life is fascinating and his disappearance from Malaysia even more so. I, obviously, assume he was taken by aliens... Logan met me there for my meeting with gridthiya who is absolutely lovely. Once she heard I was going to chaing Mai she gave me the names of 100 young hip thai artist there who will take me out. She tells me that she is working on here phd to find a new solution to curating in Thailand. Steven Will be very interested in this.

Right after I was back on a plane and heading to change Mai. I've just arrived at the apartment I rented inside a hotel. 2 stories and 2 balconies all to myself. And it's costing me $20 a night. Tomorrow: elephants!