Dec. 20, Bangkok Thailand

Bangkok is so clean!!! Compared to Varanasi and Delhi!

Leaving India was traumatic as shortly before leaving we decided to buy a 10 kg brass Ganesh statue (which we plan to hide in Liz's mom's suitcase to carry back - ha!) and were grossly overweight. Fearing this, we overloaded our carry-ons making them each about 15 kg so that the checked bags would be near the 44 kg limit, which we were, but the man checking us in - we think annoyed from the start by young kids able to travel the world - said that our carryons were over the weight limit (mind you not over the size limit) and had to be checked which made us 24 kg over weight. At $10 a kilo we were freaking. At any rate, in the end he ended up charging us $70, but since we had to change money back into rupies it ended up costing us closer to $80. The most madening part was that we saw plenty of Indians overweight on their checked luggage and also carrying multiple carryons one of which was 12 kg, plus a purse, bag, etc. So after paying the money, we then checked what we thought would be carryons - which included our most favorite purchases we didn't want damaged/lost - so then spent the flight time worrying that we hadn't packed them well enough, that they would be stolen, yadda-yadda.

Then the 2nd panic was the realization as we were taking off that we were on an Indian-made plane flown by Indian drivers. This might sound obvious, but after spending a month with the nuttiest drivers and people who don't care about safety - it was a little scary. The disabled line at the train station is often the longest line and the disabled car often the most packed. I think we mentioned, during our trip we saw 3 dogs hit, a number of fender-benders, and rickshaw bumps. Despite the brakes locking the landing and the side-ways skid we made it to BKK safely as did our luggage.

Bummed by the $80 loss we were happy that we didn't have to buy a Thai visa - for some reason we heard it was $25 each - probably for other nationalities.

We are staying off Sukhumivit at the Suk 11 hostel which is great! It's a wooden multi-story house with gardens, little plank walk-ways inside across little man-made rivers (even on the 2nd floor!). We recommend it highly - www.suk11.com - It's budget, $17/night for a double, big breakfast included, internet, TV room, gardens, roof top deck, and small library.

We are off to do some gem shopping. Tomorrow we check into the Marriott Resort and Liz's parents arrive from Hanoi, Vietnam. Liz's brother and his girlfriend arrive Dec. 22 (Liz's parents 39th anniversary).

If we don't update the blog again until after Christmas, we wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and send our love. Liz and Jeff