From Stef in Bangkok: city of angels....and trouble!

6/13/2008

Hi Guys!

I'm in Bangkok right now, on my way back to Chiang Mai tonight to meet my second group this season....and to start a whole new 2 week adventure tour!

I'll be saying goodbye to my first group this afternoon, and I can honestly say I'll be sad to see some go. I'll also be glad to see some go....

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, I've been partying hard the past 3 nights in a row in honor of my ageing (aging??). The day before my birthday was coming off of the 3 day hike we do up to the indigenous hill tribes in the northern mountains. We went white water rafting, and the water was so high (class 5!) I got thrown out of my boat with about 20 other students a few hundred times...best rafting trip ever! That night we went to a bar/club called riverside for drinks, live music, and....tequila shots....yugh!

The next day, my birthday, was the 13 hour overnight train to Bangkok so I slept the tequila off and caught up on some much needed downtime. The day we got into Bangkok we went out that night again to a nightlife hotspot in the SW corner of the city called Khao San Road. More live music, cover bands, beer towers (4 liters of beer at once!) shooting pool, and dancing....good times good times, until....the PING PONG SHOW!

At 2:30 in the am I saw a group of 12 or so of my students wandering off into the night, very very drunk. Somehow they got the bright idea to go to a ping-pong show, and even though I told them the girls were all Burmese sex slaves, they still wanted to go 'check it out!' I wasn't getting through to them, so I started grabbing them and dragged them to another dance club, telling them that the ping-pong shows were all closed for the night (which of course is a total lie...)

Point is, disaster averted! They were too drunk to fight with me, so we went to a dance club for another hour or so until they were too tired to stay out anymore.

Bangkok....always trouble in Bangkok.....

The past few days have been rough celebrations for my birthday, and end of tour with my students. Looking forward to sleeping on the plane tonight and catching up on my reading....I'm definitely feeling older, and my body is definitely not up to the same party stamina it used to be in college!

Safe and sound, and still deliriously happy in life :)
Stef