First week in Bangkok for the Anglos!

I am going to write a different account of what is going on during this trip in English. We spent a lovely time with our dear friend Zarah in New York and she invited us to this loft party reminiscent of Andy Warhol- cool night-lots of red wine. Then 5am the next morning we hopped into a cab and felt good about being early for something for once! The airline Cathay Pacific economy rocks- they gave us socks and eye sleeping covers and 4 meals (one was a lemongrass beef dish-really good!)- but the best thing was this sort of laptop thing in front of our seats that allowed us to play video games, choose movies and even make playlists from their music catalogue. You would think one would go mental after 15 hours on the plane from NYC to Hong Kong, but it was surprisingly pleasant-there were even 6 babies surrounding us but they only cried mostly during take off and landing. Poor little eardrums...Christian found a Berlitz Thai language video game and so we had fun for a while trying to figure out the pronunciation- believe me it isn't easy. We changed planes in Hong Kong- pretty looking city and nice airport. We arrived in Bangkok 21 hours later and were told by immigration that we needed an address in order to be able to enter the country. The address was in Christian's backpack being unloaded from the plane at the time. So we had to go to some BOSS-type official and he slipped us an address of a popular hostel. Obviously we were not the first travellers to bumble into this situation. Hopped into a HOT PINK cab and then arrived in the backpackers area and set up camp in a prison cell like bedroom. Earrrrrly morning (like say 3 or 4am) we hear this familiar sound- is it an alarm, the apocalypse? No, that morning and every once since we have been awaken at the pre-crack of dawn by trumpeting roosters in downtown Bangkok. Lots of them- on the rooves (roofs?) of the gorgeous temple next door. We were so scared to eat anything the first day- taking small bites of things and expecting intestinal earthquakes- but nothing...The next day I called a friend of a friend from New Brunswick and we met up with this great guy Jay (thanks Jar!) Anyways he really knows the ins and outs of SE Asia and now we are riding the water taxis, tuktuks and eating like wild dogs from the street vendors- who make the MOST amazing Thai food. (Please note we are not eating wild dogs, we are eating like wild gourmet dogs.) Bangkok reminds me alot of Mexico city as far as the pollution, ceiling geckos, lack of toilet paper, (and toilets) tasty street food and local friendly strangers helping you out on the street. We plan to go to Chiang Mai on the overnight train tomorrow night and have purchased a tour including trekking and staying with the hilltribes, an elephant ride and rafting. I hate tours in general, but for this time I will make an exception, (as I am surprisingly bad at Thai-even after a 15 hour Berlitz computer course!)