Sorry for the so short posting yesterday, I was caught trying to do the blog when Us, Mon, Ai, and Penny were ready to leave to the neighborhood flea market. We lived on the wild side after Ai made fun of us....We drank a local drink with local ice and water :) I am happy to report neither of us have the runs, hep A ( thank you Dr. Frank) or ecoli...Its "exciting" to drink something not knowing if you'll puke or become host to a virulent bacterial infection :P The final straw was when Ai said "look even the 4 year old girl drinks it!" Ok ok! We'll try it. I promise, us Americans aren't all hypochondriac weiners-as I braced myself for a severe strain of dysentary.

What we had was called "Chai Kai Mook"...which is a sort of frozen milkshake thing, flavored like anything you want ( chocolate, watermelon, coconut, coffee) but the unique thing about this drink are the little jello-like balls ( size of small gumballs) that they put in the bottom. These are made from the flower of the sticky rice plant. They are boiled together and they form little brownish-black balls, which get sucked up through the big straw they give you. So when you take a swig of your milkshake, these balls come up and you have to chew them..quite interesting, very different, and very delicious! It was a bit disconcerting when you see the guy making it on a table set up next to raw chicken and dried fish something or other, in a thai flea market, but sooner or later, I need to get used to the fact that this is not the US...I shouldn't expect it to be--It's all a part of getting used to a different culture. As Ai put yesterday, we can get killed by worse things than a Chai Kai Mook! :)

I am becoming a big fan of Thai sticky rice in desserts. Yesterday we had two different desserts which were both sticky rice and wrapped in banana leaves. One is called Kau Niaw, which has a little custard type pancake on top of sticky rice which was boiled in sweet condensed milk and coconut milk, and the other was sticky rice cooked with sweet milk and taro ( yes the same taro that hawaiians make poi with)

The last sweet thing we had was very interesting. They make cotton candy-like threads which are then colored blue, green, or pink. They have little thin crepe things called "lo ti" that are then wrapped around a pinch of the cotton candy threads, for a cotton candy burrito type thing. Neither Troy or I had ever seen anything like that before, but its very good! Addictive, even..All together its called " lo ti sai mai"

Today we got up early and headed out to the Chatuchak flea market; the biggest, busiest weekend flea market in all of Bangkok. Even at 8am it was busy with "farangs" or tourists, and locals alike. We bought a lot of stuff for 1/5th thew price you's expect to pay in the states...Troy got billabong ( probably fakes) boardshorts for 6 bucks! I got some fake birkenstocks ( but with real leather; GOOD fakes) for like 5 bucks.

We also stopped at the bus station to get the schedule for Surat Thani, the gateway to Ko Samui, Ko Phan Ngan, and Ko Tao. I think we will stay here 2-3 more days, then head south to see the beaches! The heat is not as bad, I imagine, with beachfront breezes and water to lay in all day :) The bus ride is an exhausting 11 hours, with another 3 hour ferry ride to the islands. Needless to say we will be pooped om arrival, but we will have plenty of time to relax when we're there. This is the place that "the beach" movie made famous. I'll let you all know if it is truly as magical as it looked on the big screen.

The pic is from part of the Bangkok skyline from On Noot station. It isn't as condensed as many other cities around the world ( like NY or SF) but rather a few towering high rises clustered together amidst expansive urban sprawl in all directions.

Tomorrow is a pool day, I think ;-)

Until next time xoxoxoxoxoox