So I make it back to Thailand. And except for the long wait on the Thai side of the border, a fairly smooth trip. What I really notice coming into Bangkok, it that it could be any western city in the world. From the freeway, you can’t tell it’s Thailand, and it being night you just see the lit up stuff. Well, I think this was the biggest culture shock I had ever received. I think it was just because I wasn’t expecting to see such a modern city, even though I had been here before, it was kind of a shock, I wasn’t expecting to have that. Well, anyway, after a long day of traveling, it’s a early quite night. The next day I do the one tourist thing I want to do in Bangkok, I go see the royal palace, and emerald Buda. It’s quite a spectacular place, especially the weapons room, with hundreds of years of weapons. Too bad you can’t see very much of the palace, at it is still a palace. Then just some wondering, where I get myself quite lost, wow I didn’t think I could get that lost in an area I was slightly familiar with. That night me and a South African friend head to the night market. One of my favorite crazy places in Bangkok. Mostly just the same things you find everywhere in the city, but with a better selection, though not the best place to bargain, at least on some things. But the best part is the food court. I mile of food on one side, and a mile of beer on the other, with a stage at one end with free entertainment, and both times I had been there, there was a Thai cover band, doing top 40 with amateur choreographed dancers, absolutely hilarious. I do like Bangkok. But next on the list was Kanchanaburi, a town on the western part of Thailand, close the Burma. I really didn’t know what to expect here, but what I found was a lovely town, one of my favorite in Thailand. I had a good group of people here, and there were some cool things to do as well. The first thing I did was go to the Tiger Monastery. A place where the monks take in injured and misplaced tigers. It was really neat as we could actually go sit by the tigers, and touch them. That was cool. So then I signed up for a day tour the next day, to see a 7 tiered waterfall, and death railway museum, and ride the train. The waterfall was amazing, and we only made it to the fifth tier, as we ran out of time, and the path got a kinda bad. Next was the museum at hells pass. Now for anybody who doesn’t know what the death railway was it was a project by the Japanese during WWII, to create a link between Burma and Bangkok. And it was made with indigenous slave labor and WWII POW’s. And Hells Pass was the hardest part, where the most people died. And this new museum was very nice. Then we went a little further on, and rode part of the railway that was still in use, there was a nice part at the beginning that was along a cliff, but most of the ride was boring, and kids used the railway to go to school, so It was filled with then coming home. Then at the very end, we stopped at the bridge; the most famous landmark of Kanchanaburi, the Bridge over the River Kwai. For such a famous bridge it was kinda boring. I had a couple nice nights in the town, one night we got invited to go to a birthday party on a barge, with dance music, and BYOB. Also spent a night on the town, the little of it there was, and had a blast. That was the last night in K’buri, and the start of long stretch of my not sleeping. As that was Friday night, most of us were meeting back up in Bangkok on Saturday night, and though a lot of us where going to have quite one, we ended up being out until 4am, and I had stuff to do the next day. Then it was Sunday, I left Tues. morn (or mon. night depending on how you looked at it.) So Sunday was shopping day. And I went to the Weekend market. WOW. This is the largest open-air market in the World, and it’s a little boggling at the size of it. So I found most of what I wanted, except for some shirts, which I found early in the day, but when I tried to find them again, no idea where it was, very frustrating. So I left the shirts till the next day, as I could get them close to where I was staying, and called it a day. Didn’t see my friends that evening, and was going to call it a early night, till I stopped by for a beer on the way home, and then ended up talking to some random guy for hours, and had to move to the illegal bars in the streets. Well shit, I wanted to get some sleep, and I just wasn’t happening, and this was my last night in Bangkok with a room, as I was just going to go to the airport at midnight, since I had to check in at 2am anyway. My last day I didn’t do too much, just bought the last of my shirts, sent some stuff home, and got ready to leave Asia. Crazy, I couldn’t believe that all that time had passed, and I was going to be leaving the continent. It seemed like I had been there forever, but also that I had got there yesterday. Well I guess that’s the sign of a good place. I said goodbye to my friends, as we were all leaving about the same time, within a day of each other, and then I left Asia. Till next time, I’ll miss you.