Woke up at 6AM and felt refreshed. We both hit the gym at the hotel for a hard workout, and then we mapped out the rest of the day. We figured we would hit the weekend market via the sky train, do some trip planning (next stop, Chiang Mai?), go to Chinatown to explore and get dinner, and then we would to the Night Bazaar, near the Muay Thai kickboxing stadium.

In Chinatown, we were approached by "Professor Joe" from Singapore, who was really helpful and gave us some tips. Suddenly, though, he was pointing us to one of the government run tuk-tuks (for only 20 baht) and was suggesting excursions in Chiang Mai. Our scam detector went off, but Bev was curious, so we took the cheap tuk tuk ride to the place where the "special promotion" was happening. There may as well have been a "suckers wanted" sign on the door. We listened to a quick schpiel and got out of dodge.

We were going to walk to the night bazaar which should have been pretty close by, except we found out that Professor Joe lied about the location of his magic special promotion travel agency. So, instead of a quick walk, we needed a taxi ride.

The night bazaar was uneventful, although two interesting sites are there: 1) muay thai kickboxing arena and 2) Thai puppet theater. We didn't go to either, but we might when we return in March. We watched the Liverpool/Chelsea "football" match on a big screen in a beer garden type atmosphere, replete with pad thai and other tasty Thai tidbits. We capped off the night with mangos and sticky rice (excellent!), and we caught a cab home.

Long story short, the cabbie got lost and spent most of the ride hacking up a lung in our cab. Bev was not a happy camper. I actually had to get on the phone with his dispatcher and try to explain the name of our hotel and street location. He finally got us there, but his meter was way over what it should be. I gave him some money expecting to get change for the negotiated rate, but apparently my Thai and his English didn't get us very far, and he gave me change based on the meter. I told him he was full of crap and tried to get someone from the hotel to translate, but that didn't work.

He started to drive off, and I yelled at him to stop and give me my money. He looked at me and kept going. I think I better get zen quickly about getting ripped off occasionally on this trip. Is there a Thai Better Business Bureau? Em…no. Interestingly enough, losing your temper in Thailand is a big no-no. It is equated to losing face, and it is very, very important to save face here. Other than disrespecting the King, that is one of the top items on the list of don't do's. So this was a good lesson early in the trip to take it easy and relax, and if I get ripped off, it really is only money. Are you talkin' to me? ARE YOU TALKIN' TO ME?

Well, tomorrow we are supposed to leave Bangkok, and we have neither a destination nor accommodations picked out, so I think the trip gets very interesting starting tomorrow. We were leaning towards either Ayutthaya (the old capitol of Thailand) or Chiang Mai (further north…considered the cultural capital of Thailand with some good trekking as well). We also could stop at a few towns along the way to Chiang Mai. We will go to the train station tomorrow and see what our options are. For now, goodnight!