even in Thailand, Ronald McDonald is on every other street corner… except over here, he is doing the traditional Thai bow-greet.  I wanted to take a photo with me behind Ronald, putting him in a RNC (rear naked choke), but thought the Thai’s might frown upon that since they seem to be such peaceful peeps.

The below photo is the view from our taxi.  If you’ve never been to a third world country, I encourage you to find a way to get to one.  Growing up in America, in a middle class family, left me without a clue of what it’s ‘really’ like out there in the rest of the world.  Hell, most American’s don’t even own a passport.  I had been to Mexico before when I was in my early teens, but that was still Cancun, and I was still too young to appreciate how most parts of the world live on a day to day basis.

On the streets of Bangkok, you will find all sorts of interesting things.  Street vendors have displays of knock off brands from Rolex watches, to fake viagra oral gels.  It’s absurd.  Every where you look, someone is trying to hustle you into a cab ride, or buying something.  The crazy thing is, you hardly see anyone begging on the street!  Everyone is out here busting their ass either selling fruit from their cart, or homemade Thai food from their broken down dodgy looking ricksha.  You’ll see 3-4 people on one scooter, and often times a toddler sitting on the drivers lap with no helmet.  I’m still amazed that in both times coming over here, I haven’t seen a single accident.  It’s absolutely shocking to watch people drive over here.  Everyone just kind of merges into each other, and cuts each other off, but NO ONE FLIPS OUT ON EACH OTHER!  The Thai’s are so peaceful!  I believe I read that 90% of them are practicing Buddhists, so it’s no wonder that they’re all like ‘yeah, whatevers clever’.

It’s amazing to see people that are living day to day just trying to make enough money to eat, sitting out in the sweltering heat, hustling their asses off, and yet no one seems to be violent or yelling at each other.  It’s really hard to put into words the way of life over here.  But one thing I can tell you, is that it’s a GREAT EXERCISE FOR TAMING YOUR EGO-

When you find yourself crossing a street with 200+ scooters and cars coming at you, trying not to trip on uneven pavement, and KNOWING your ass looks like a tourist, you have to remember to be humble and that your ego is not running the show.  It’s brilliant.

Anyway, all is well over here, minus the lack of sleep.  I love coming to countries like this, as it really reminds me that ANY of my problems, are gold plated problems-

*** just had to come back and write an update.  I just had my first ever, 4-hands on massage.  The last time we were in Thailand, we saw a 10 hands on massage (5 women massaging you at one time) but I didn’t have the energy to deal with 5 ladies at once.  4 hands on was pretty good I’ll admit.  Even when the one woman said to me, “same-same! you same bodeeee as boy”… then I replied, “noooooo girl!  boys WISH they had this body!”, followed by all 3 of us laughing.  Both girls in their broken English, kept saying, “lady boy” lol.  Then, one went as far as to touch my crotch and say, “massage?”.  I laughed and said, “no no, I’m fine thanks.”.  I wasn’t sure if she was really keen on trying to get me off, or if she wanted to see if I actually had a penis!  If you didn’t know, Thailand is the largest capital in the world for sex changes.  Rather interesting. And no, I have not made it to a lady-boy show yet lol.