This is an incredible country - filled with 
astonishingly beautiful sights, friendly people, the most amazing food 
we've ever had, and a sense of peace which permeates even stinky, 
sweltering Bangkok. 

Some highlights, then:

The food. 

This was one of the main reasons we came to Thailand,believe it or not, 
and we were amazed by how consistently good even the plainest looking 
food was. The best dishes were usually curries, and our favourite Thai 
ingredient is probably coconut milk, the true nectar of the gods. 

We ate at fancier restaurants occasionally, but usually stuck to little 
hole in the wall places, mainly because the food they served was 
incredibly cheap and delicious. One of our favourite places served 
Thai-Muslim food - and we ate like kings and queens (rich chicken 
curries, laced with spice, a crisp vegetable salad with peanut sauce, 
fresh lemonade, and these little crunchy rotis, drizzled with condensed 
milk and sugar for dessert - all for less than $2 each!) We've been back 
there 3 times (5, if you count the times we went and they were closed, 
and we sulked away to another restaurant), and will probably go again. 

The food is spicy, but not unbearably so. Most of our dishes were 
probably toned down for our 'farang' (foreigner) palates, but still came 
with little bowls of condiments - including 3 different kinds of 
chili-laden sauces, which we added to most of our meals. 

The surprise dish for both of us was a plain noodle soup. This 
unasssuming dish (noodles with some kind of meat - pork, chicken in 
little balls, and one or two vegetables) was so delicious that Paul once 
ordered two huge bowls in a row. We had some today, and yesterday, too.

Another highlight related to food was our cooking course. Only a day 
long, we were exposed to the whole cooking process. We went to the 
market and found out where all the ingredients come from. We learnedto 
cook 6 different dishes - from appetizers to dessert, and were given a 
cookbook with about 25 recipes. Of course, we got to eat all the food, 
and it was spectacularly good. 

Bangkok.
Everywhere we go, we're amazed by how decent the capital cities are. 
Bangkok has everything you'd ever need, and some pretty incredible 
palace architecture - so far beyond baroque, and everything dripping 
with gold.

Bangkok's backpacker ghetto is called Khao San Road. Tourists started 
coming to Khao San several decades ago, and now it has evolved into a 
mind-boggling, tourist-only street. Restaurants, bars, travel agencies, 
knock-off clothing, bootleg tapes, fake student cards and stands with 
every imaginable type of souvenir - all side by side for 800 yards. 

The Tuk-Tuk.
A chainsaw with three wheels, these are Bangkok's most efficient and 
noisiest transport. They spew so much pollution you'd swear they alone 
were responsible for the hole in the ozone layer. They're basically 
three-wheel motorcycles, with an awning bolted on top at precisely the 
right angle to prevent you from seeing where you're going, or how fast 
you're going there. These are both good things. 

The people.
So friendly, so generous, so kind you can't even believe it. Everyone, 
that is, except the tuk-tuk drivers.

The train.
I've waxed eloquent about the train before, but I'll do it one last 
time. The train is so peaceful, and allows you to see a totally 
different country than the one seen from the bus. The people who live 
and work near train stations are especially interesting - they still 
wave madly at each passing train. Train stations are people magnets - we 
saw whole, middle-class looking Thai families right beside the railway 
tracks, on a picnic! 

The religion. 
Buddha is alive and well and living in Thailand.  Monks ride beside you 
on the bus (well, beside me, because Buddhism has this annoying rule 
that monks can't touch or make eye contact with women - if a woman wants 
to give something to the monk - something I'm not sure how she's 
supposed to do if he's not looking at her - she must place it on his 
robe, or give it to a man to give to him), and even the tiniest little 
speck of a town has an enormous temple. Drivers take their hands from 
the wheel and press them together in a 'wai' whenever they pass an 
important temple. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of 
Buddha sculptures in Thailand, and every one is revered. Every morning, 
monks roam the streets with their alms bowls, and believers fill them 
with food and other offerings. Spirit houses (little houses built atop a 
pedestal, for daily food offerings to the spirits) are in back alleys 
and in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Most men here spend some time 
as a monk. Amazing. 

The patriotism.
Buddhism has made its mark on most Thais, but the only thing that 
affects everyone here is the king. He is as close to a living deity as 
you can get. Every house has at least one flattering picture of his 
youthful visage (despite the fact he's almost 72, most of the photos are 
old, and it's most likely illegal to publish a bad photo of him). Most 
of the photos picture him demonstrating one of his many, many talents - 
photography, musical composition, urban planning, carving, drawing, etc. 
It's odd, even though we still have the queen on our money, to see every 
coin, stamp and bill with his face on it, and a nation so unquestioning 
of its monarchy. Everyone is expected to stand for the national anthem, 
which plays in most public places in Thailand; it was written, of 
course, by the king. 

The pollution. 
It's as bad or worse than you imagined. We're here in the hottest 
season, which makes it worse than we imagined, too. 

Riding on a scooter to the ruins at Phanom Rung.
Sailing blissfully (as blissfully as one can when one is wearing a 
bubble-visored helmet from 1972) along, past water buffalo, green rice 
paddies and a string of amazed Thais. Our scooter struggled to take us 
to the top of an extinct volcano, where we gazed with amazement at the 
finest restored Khmer-style temple and intricate carving in Thailand.
 

The tiny town of Phrae.
The friendliest place on earth. We have never seen so many genuine 
smiles.

The bat cave. 
No, not where the Batmobile is parked, but a cave outside Khao Yai 
national park, where an estimated 3 million bats come pouring out of the 
mouth of a cave on their way to hunt mosquitoes (yay, bats!!!). And 
you're standing right beside them, breathing in the unbelievable stench 
of bat guano travelling on a wave of air created by this moving wall of 
winged creatures. It's uncanny how much those rubber bats fly like the 
real thing. 

Foreigners. 
It seems as though you get a special discount if you have, or get, a 
tattoo in Thailand, because at least half of the foreigners here have 
them. Thailand has a very strange group of expatriate and wanna-be 
expatriate. Signs everywhere discourage drug use, child prostitution and 
a whole host of other undesirable activities. We met some very nice 
people despite this, though.

Air-conditioning.
Neither of us understood all the hoopla about air conditioning. Until we 
came to Thailand. While here, we gravitated to any cool breeze, whether 
man-made or not. And now, our hopes and prayers go out to the inventor 
of that urban oasis, the incredible, brilliant, 7-11s...