Nok nok. Who's there?

Nok Air! Goofy airline with a smiling duck beak for a logo. Not that I flew them, but it was funny, eh? I'm on my second full day in Bangkok. I met up with Amy last night, and we're going to head off for Cambodia in the early morning. It should be interesting. I'm looking forward to Angkor Wat, but not so sure about the rest of the country. I'm doing my best to stay in travel zen mode, and it's working out so far. I had my first tuktuk experience yesterday. I was walking to the palace to see the emerald buddha, and a really nice thai guy stopped me to say that it was closed, and I should go elsewhere. Sure it's closed, that's the big scam! But it really was, and he really was just being nice. He showed me a couple of other places in his book, flagged a driver forme,and sent me on my way. The driver was supposed to take me to two temples and a "high fashion" store (so he gets paid to drag a tourist in), then back to where I'm staying. After the first temple and the fashion store, he dropped me off at the big buddha and showed me where to walk to get home "my kids are waiting for me", so whatever, the buddha was really cool, and I headed in the direction he pointed back to KSR. Enter second random nice thai guy who showed me two more places to see and put me in another tuktuk. This driver took me to one temple (that was closed), then to a fashion store, then to a jewelry store, then LEFT ME AT THE SECOND TEMPLE!!! He didn't even stick around to get paid. Just decided that I wasn't playing the game of "pretend to be interested enough to waste a lot of time so they think you might buy some overpriced cheap crap". I so firmly convinced another driver to take me home NO STOPS! It was not so bad, and I'm proud of myself for being firm and tough in the face of the tuktuk mafia :)

In the midst of all of that, I had my first "wow" moment that literally brought me to tears. I spoke for awhile with a really kind monk in the first temple who wanted to talk about hurricane rita because he'd seen it on the news. He was being very empathetic and drawing comparisons to the tsunami of last year. I couldn't help think, a quarter of a million people in some of the poorest areas of the world just washed away. I can't fathom it. So later when I was walking through another temple, the monks were in evening service, and the chants were just sooooo beautiful, and I realized that even with the obnoxious driver situation, I'm surrounded by beautiful, kind, generous people who are so poor and yet have real concern for some of the wealthiest in the world. That's a beautiful spirit.

Off to Cambodia tomorrow. This should be an interesting trip. Stay tuned, and I'll share the gory details.