Hanoi to Bangkok

So there is a moment in every traveller's travel when it is time to come home and sleep in one's own bed, unpack boxes and ummm...make money. Yes, it turns out that traveling for 2 months is not the cheapest of ventures and we actually cannot wait to get back in the grind...I know, all of you who are in the grind are wishing you could wake up, watch Oprah, read for 4 hours, go get some pad thai and a massage (all for a whopping $5)...for some reason when I put it down like that is sounds pretty awesome but truth be told these two travellers are ready for a morning coffee, pouring our energy into new projects or lessons and getting back to the swing of things...

But before we do that we do have a few more days here in Bangkok...we were en route to Laos after Hanoi when we both looked at eachother (and our bank account) and said maybe we should change our tickets and go to Bangkok for the next few days while we wait for the return home...because for some reason 3 days of train rides to get to really remote places in Laos all of the sudden sounded exhausting and expensive so we opted for pad thai, massages and Oprah for the next few days...we got into Bangkok, found ourselves a decent pad (with a swimming pool) and have been vegging for 3 days...we are even playing a game "who can spend the least amount of money in a day"...I am of course winning because if you know me at all you would know that when it comes to a good game of cheapness...you can count on me...yesterday, I managed on $6...today...I think it might be $7 but Hoyt wants a t-shirt so he might hit $12....

Bangkok is great if you are looking for the big city backpacker scene...cheap, imitation (most likely pirated) of everything for sale, lots of really interesting food, the center of town has great movie theatres...we saw the new Batman (nice job to Heath Ledger) and Hancok...one of the interesting things with the cinema is that the national anthem is played before every film with a photo montage of the king in his glory throughout on the screen...everyone stands and watches during this...I could just imaging if Georgie was put on the screen before our movies...fascinating...I also almost finished with Atlas Shrugged and so I couldn't help but think of what John Galt would think of this action...anyway, we are having a great time and still laughing a lot but can't wait to be back...