Observations
1. Road rules are optional. Have you ever been in a situation where someone in front of you is driving significantly slower than the speed limit yet you are unable to pass them? And you're so tempted to just pull over into the emergency lane and quickly get on with your life? Well come to Thailand because that must be what they teach in driver's ed......scratch that I don't think they have drivers ed here. I see children driving on the road in mainstream traffic with about 3 of their friends on the moped with them.
2. There's no weight limit for 20 baht bus. They will pack those buses until you have strangers sitting on stranger's laps. The only problem is that to get almost anywhere you have to climb over a mountain and the bus is so over capacity that it is chugging up the mountain. Those bus rides into Patong have become a major intercession time for me because every time we start struggling up that hill I think I'm going to die.
3. The fancier the tuk tuk the more they want to charge. The way we avoid it is we look for the crappy tuk tuks.
4. Children are appreciated but not protected. Poverty drives people to do things that I think no parent would ever do to their child in a normal situation. Every where I go I see children staying up late while their parents work. You'll see kids running around in the markets while their parents work; you'll see them asleep in their parent's arms while their parents cook and bargain; or you'll see the children forced to work and right along side their parents. In touristy areas you'll see children being exploited; their parents using them to sell trinkets to appeal to the "soft-hearted" Westerners.
The problems that affect Thailand are so much more vast and in the open in comparison to Auckland. In Auckland you really did feel like you could make big changes on an individual level, but here it seems that the problems are so overwhelming that it would need to be addressed on a larger scale first and work towards individual changes.
5. Smells that come up from the street are never good. The steam that comes up from under the street smells like boiled sewage........that's all I have to say about that.
6. Thai people have an affinity for squid. It comes in all forms here: flattened and dried, grilled on a stick, fried, made into potato chips, and many other ways that I've yet to see. I wonder what they'd think if they saw how we use squid as bait in the states........
well that's all for now. I'll keep adding on
2. There's no weight limit for 20 baht bus. They will pack those buses until you have strangers sitting on stranger's laps. The only problem is that to get almost anywhere you have to climb over a mountain and the bus is so over capacity that it is chugging up the mountain. Those bus rides into Patong have become a major intercession time for me because every time we start struggling up that hill I think I'm going to die.
3. The fancier the tuk tuk the more they want to charge. The way we avoid it is we look for the crappy tuk tuks.
4. Children are appreciated but not protected. Poverty drives people to do things that I think no parent would ever do to their child in a normal situation. Every where I go I see children staying up late while their parents work. You'll see kids running around in the markets while their parents work; you'll see them asleep in their parent's arms while their parents cook and bargain; or you'll see the children forced to work and right along side their parents. In touristy areas you'll see children being exploited; their parents using them to sell trinkets to appeal to the "soft-hearted" Westerners.
The problems that affect Thailand are so much more vast and in the open in comparison to Auckland. In Auckland you really did feel like you could make big changes on an individual level, but here it seems that the problems are so overwhelming that it would need to be addressed on a larger scale first and work towards individual changes.
5. Smells that come up from the street are never good. The steam that comes up from under the street smells like boiled sewage........that's all I have to say about that.
6. Thai people have an affinity for squid. It comes in all forms here: flattened and dried, grilled on a stick, fried, made into potato chips, and many other ways that I've yet to see. I wonder what they'd think if they saw how we use squid as bait in the states........
well that's all for now. I'll keep adding on