number 3

17/07/06

We woke up kinda late today showered and ate breakfast in the hostel. We met an American guy named Dan and got chatting. He had a Thai girlfriend and was here for about 4 weeks also. We ended up deciding that we would see Bangkok together. We got a taxi and went to a Big C shopping centre and then to Calsan road. Dunno how u spells it. It’s a Crazy Market Street where u can find all sorts of cheap shit. Got a map of Thailand for like 8AUD and then got some passport photos and international student cards made up. Hehehehehe. Went and got a feed and then we climbed into a government sponsored tuk-tuk and for 10THB each we got to see a bunch of WAT’s and a big golden Buddha and stuff around Bangkok. We also went to the Manhattan to look at suits but they were a bit annoying and pretty expensive as well. We also went to a TAT (Thai A? Tourist) centre to book a Chiang Mai tour but it was also too much.

We then went to a sky rail train station to get a train back to close to our apartment. For about 50THB we got a super fast smooth sky train back to our suburb. We then tried to find a bus but it was freakin hard so we ended up catching a taxi back. Again it took us like a hour to find the place again.

Later that night I went for a walk to try and find a SIM card to call home. I found a 711 and used my great Thai language skills mixed with a bit of broken English and some pointing to end up with a 12call sim card with 50THB of credit. They write your passport number down with the phone number which is all kinda Big Thai Brother watching you. I called Australia but my credit only lasted like 2 minutes. DAMN IT. Then I called the operator and it took another like 20 minutes to get them to tell me that u need to use the 008 or 009 prefix when calling overseas instead of the + and it charges you less. So I return to the 711 and buy a recharge card.

On the way walking home I walk past some Thai food stalls and some mechanics and then this dog went psycho and started barking at me. I had nothing to hit it with so I started walking away from it. It started to get really fired up so I turned around and stared at it. I thought it was going to attack me!!! I growled at it and backed of slowly and didn’t take my eyes of it! I definitely didn’t want to get bit by a street dog. It probably had RABIES or something worse.

The next time I call Australia I get like 10 times the value for money! AWESOME!