inconsistent news from southeast asia

Oh yes, we've been up to very little of late. Blame it on the weather. The 28th was spent lazing about in cafes, though we went to see Wat Phra Sing and Wat Chediluang in the late afternoon. Some very impressive architecture in a very different style from what we've seen. Some of it ruined and some kept up. Personally, i was more impressed with the gigantic ruins. And the creepy wax guy in the glass case.... i'm not sure of the story there, sorry.

We really didn't do much with the evening..

Day 16 was another crappy rainyish one.. we went to visit the park in the south west corner of the old city, but the weather was rapidly turning sour on us. Headed back towards the hostel to visit an excellent pad thai vendor when it started to pour. The sort of torrential downpours we get once every couple of years - you know, the ones that only last five minutes? Except this one went on for some half an hour or forty-five minutes. Nothing to do but sit tight and lose another game of backgammon.

Of course, that much rain floods any city, and while this one is very used to flooding, it makes for some interesting times, nonetheless. The first sign of this was in the bathroom on our return to the hostel.. i'm so glad i got to be the one to find the hordes of cockroaches. And hordes is no exaggeration here. There's only 13 in that picture, but i think it looks like a horde. I guess the cockroaches wanted out of the rain, too. Look at the stunning variety of shapes and sizes! I tried not to be disgusted by big cockroaches, really i did.

Fortunately, our hostel has a bunch of outdoor toilets, cockroach free.

Day 17 and it's still raining on and off. We reckoned we'd head out to MINI-PUTT (yes, i know, but mini golf is mini golf, right?), due to the weather. Instead we had an adventure with the ridiculously flooded streets east of us. We waded on heroically, striving for mini-putt, only to be turned back by yet more flooded streets.

Now my plan was to head to the pool supply store we'd gone by the previous day and pick up a giant inflatable octopus to ride down to mini-putt but SOMEONE didn't think that was reasonable... so maybe another day. The weather has really been forcing us to laze about lately. siiigh.

In the evening, catherine insisted on making sure that the night market was flooded, which it was, so we ended up doing some barhopping closer to home.

First, it was off to see a big grey rat at the place we ate lunch. I'm so glad we were just having beer at the time, but still.. more ew. It's the rain, again, i'm sure. Then it was to some faux-hippy rooftop trendy bar thing and then to the "Inter-bar", where they had an average sort of bar band playing beatles, stones, NEIL YOUNG, etc. covers.. Clearly the best of them. Oh yes, and hotel california. You can't escape that song anywhere you go. It's everywhere here, for some reason.

And i know, it's hiding in some foreigners ghetto, but we both desperately needed to hear the rock. surely you understand. And it was a thai bar band, so we got some funny accents thrown into the ever-so-american (and canadian) rock songs.

Day 18 is officially october.. and.. umm... we did almost nothing again? yeah, that sounds about right. Slept in a lot. Went down and checked the night market again - it's substantially less flooded than it was, but still impassable. Traded off a book for some clive barker stuff. Ate. Maybe i'll have more excitement next time?