Bangkok

After a hellish border crossing from Cambodia, during which I met a couple my age from France and ate dinner together, I had a busy, chaotic, productive first day in Bangkok. I had a hard time finding a room (the whole city is full)... I rode the public bus to the train station to book tickets to go to Ko Tao, an island several hours south of Bangkok where I can learn to scuba dive. I booked scuba school and lodging for the up coming week! I leave tomorrow night! I also booked train tickets back to BK, north to Chang Mai, and back to BK a final time. I booked a hostel for my last night in BK before flying to Kalcutta. And I went to the India Visa office to apply for a visa. They will keep my passport for 6 to 8 business days. I've never booked and planned ahead so much in the last 3 months in Asia as I did today.
From 4pm onward, I had some fun, taking the river ferry to Chinatown and ate a sitdown dinner in the street among all the street vendors where I talked to some nice people from China, and a local family who insisted on pouring more beer into my glass and giving me crab.
The Thai people are very polite, helpful and smiling. Many speak English, or at least make an awesome effort to communicate. The Chinese and Indian communities have a big presence here. Some ethnic diversity is refreshing after visiting several homogenous countries in a row. Once it got dark, I hopped on the back of a public motorcycle to get home, and saw several monuments illuminated at night. Bangkok is big, loud and complex, but fun!