Pintmaster

Hello again, and welcome to my interesting vacation. This week is filled with more exciting news. This time, it is about Thailand, coming to you live from Australia! I am on my third day in Oz, and I am having a great time. The Holland vs. Portugal match is on tonight and we have to get up at 4:00 am if we want to watch it. We will.

The pictures are here by the way.

So, about Thailand. I spent all of my time in Bangkok staying with my friend Bob from RPI. He has a car there and drove me around everywhere. I saw the major touristy sights, a few of the Wots (temples) and the Royal Palace. I had a big night out one night and I did some shopping at the night markets there. I have to say though, I like a lot about Thailand, I have a few things that were sour milk to me. I made a list below:

I really enjoyed my time in Thailand, and I would love to go back. I hear that in the beach resort areas down south, the food is a little different (better) and people are different too. Every big city really will end up being the same. I saw McDonalds in a lot of places, and I got a great shirt there that has the logo and says ‘McShit’. Doing it again, I would definitely get out of Bangkok. There is a lot to see there if u are interested in Temples and Night markets, and I had a nice time when we did that stuff, but I would definitely like to get out of Bangkok into the countryside more. Im sure you are all excited for my updates on Australia. It has been great so far. I will write towards the end.

Im doing my entry for Spain from Bangkok since I didnt really get a chance in my 6 hours back in London. So far, I havent been to somewhere I didnt like. I had a great time in Marbella with Duncan. We spent a lot of time in Puerto Banus at the bars down there. Duncan is working for a promotions company called Sintillate doing a lot of "PR"ing (I guess that stands for public relations) with the basic goal of trying to create awareness of the various events Sintillate is putting on. I flew over there on Easyjet which was pretty reasonable and compares with Southwest, however I think the planes are newer. The plane I had back was only seven weeks old. You can really tell based on cabin noise that Airbus has an edge over Boeing. The plane was pretty quiet, and I was right next to the engine! So as for my trip to Spain, we hung out a lot at Lineker’s which belongs to the brother of Gary Lineker (the famous british soccer player). One night we went to Pangia where David Schwimmer and his gang were (i only saw them the next day at a beach party) and another night we went to Dreamers. The night we were at Dreamers, Teddy Sheringham (another british soccer player) got turned away because he had trainers/sneakers on. I guess in Spain, they dont know any of the British celebs. Unfortunately, while I was there I didnt take many pictures when we were out so all I really have to show is a few shots of Duncan’s place.

I got burnt the first day I was there and right now I feel like a snake shedding its skin. I met some nice people there, however, I think Puerto Banus is a really pretentious place. There were a lot of "beautiful people" walking around and all of the designer stuff got a little on my nerves. I had a great time hanging out with Duncan and I know that all the free drinks I was fed didnt hurt my enjoyment there. Thailand is great so far. It is my second day and I am loving it. Asia is awesome. I ate dinner last night for $1.50. Even the expensive restaurants are cheaper relative to europe and the states. Thailand is well worth the 10 hour trip from London. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

The verdict is in, and Turkey rocks. I had a fantastic time there and you can definitely see that from the Photos . We spent one night in Istanbul and were treated by some customers of my Dad to a fantastic dinner. I experienced an insane taxi driver who was overtaking on blind corners and proclaimed ‘If everyone in Istanbul drove like me, there would be no traffic’. Most likely because everyone would be in hospital recovering from accidents. Outside of Istanbul, taxi drivers are a little more relaxed. We flew to Dalaman the next day which is South East of Izmir which is the home of the first internet celebrity, Mahir Cagri whom some out there may remember.

We boarded the boat about 20 minutes drive away in Gocek and then sailed around the Gulf of Fethiye for most of the week. A lot of the islands we stopped at had ruins of Greek villages left over from when Turkey enforced their borders more strictly after world war one. A lot of the islands are not densely inhabited with usually a restaurant in most of the major bays. We stopped in Fethiye and took a trip to see the ruins of the cities of Xanthos, Pinara and Tlos. Many of the old ruins were inhabited first by the Lycians, then the Romans, and then by the Byzantines. Tlos was also used as an Ottoman stronghold.

Some of the highlights of my trip were: Getting a leather coat custom tailored (yes, they made it from scratch) for me in about 6 hours using incredible leather for about 1/4th of the cost of an inferior quality, mass produced one from Banana Republic; Being astounded when we stopped at a farm to get some fresh vegetables and they refused to take any money for the bagfull of tomatoes and cucumber we had picked. The people’s kindness towards strangers, to just give away something where we were completely willing to pay was tremendously kind; Lastly, buying a kilim was extremely exciting. I bought a small carpet for my living room which is a hand done, in two pieces, by two people on small looms and then stitched together. I will have a picture up there eventually.

I am now looking forward to going to Spain in a couple of days! More pictures in a couple of weeks!