Panthip Plaza/ Muay Thai (with video)/ Bye Bye

See video at end

Today there was really no plan. We decided to take a day of rest, sleep late and just see what happens. After a late breakfast, we decided to take the Chao Praya Express River Boat down to the Sky Train and let it take us to the shopping haven of Bangkok, Siam Square. After several hours of browsing through markets, snacking on delicious fresh food, we found a most interesting and probably illegal area, Panthip Plaza. This is a multilevel building with nothing but electronic related material for sale. It's like Best Buy to the 10th power without all the glamour. Most of the electronics are at a similar price to US but there are some deals. What blew our socks off was the software and music! Here you can find ANY software (Vista, adobe, photoshop, Rosetta Stone, ANYTHING you can think of) for about $2USD. You can also buy any game for PC, Wii, PSP, xbox, etc for a similar price including the newest. They even sell the game systems that have been modified to accept copied software!! These are all definitely copies and probably illegal but, uhhh.......so what. There were also DVDs and CD's for almost nothing. Here, we bought 12 DVD's that are still in the theater, 3 computer games (USD worth $150), and 12 music albums for $25. It was a little wierd when you put in the order and they told you to come back in 20 minutes (while they burn it, lol). We regret we didn't know about this before we went so we could have taken orders and brought people back some goods!

In the evening we crossed town , payed for ringside tickets at Lumphini Arena in Bangkok and were escorted in a side entrance, went through metal detectors, security, tunnels, etc until they brought us to our 2nd row ringside seats. Definitely felt like a "VIP". The price really wasn't that bad because Seng and family played as if they were locals and got the "local" price while there was NO WAY Roger could do that and therefore paid a lot more! Doing the math is was about $25 a piece! Not bad for 10 Muay Thai fights, five rounds per fight and non stop entertainment! We've never been to any boxing match but it's much better in person! The atmosphere was electrifying and the crowd was REALLY into it with all the OHH's , OOOOH's, Uhh's, chanting etc!! Several of the fights were actually Championship matches for particular weight classes within Thailand. It was great!

Today we leave. This will definitely be the last post. See you soon!!!!!
Roger and Seng

Bangkok (check out video at end)

Well, what can we say? We're back into civilization now at Bangkok, Thailand. Man, this place is absolutely crazy!! We love our hotel that is right on the Chao Praya River, a main tranportation route in Bangkok. So far we have tried out all of the transportation options just to say we did, including walking, taxi, tuk tuk, subway, and skytrain. Avoid the tuk tuks for sure. They have no meters and most of them will try and rip you off or take you to some shopping area even if you didnt' ask. The cabs are fair, relatively cheap, and are very skilled drivers but hold on!!!! Seriously, these guys could beat the hell out of Jimmy Johnson or Jeff Gordon, etc. Their ability to maneuver through heavy traffic at high speeds is like Atlanta times 50!!!!! So far we have covered some of the more popular Wats such as Wat Arun (favorite), Wat Saket, Wat Pho, and Wat Phra Kaew which include some famous sights such as the Emerald Buddha, Reclining Buddha, and Golden Mount. We've also enjoyed the Grand Palace and Royal Regalia museum which both give you much insight into the interesting but currently ridiculous and obsolete (like England) royal family, etc. Other sights have been the Royal Barges museum, and a snake farm (one of two in the world) where they raise and "milk" the venom from most of the worlds poisonous snakes to make antivenom for unfortunate souls. Here we were up close and personal with pissed off King Cobras, mangrove pit vipers, etc!! Today we also spent some time at a 6, yes, 6 level mall!!! It has also been fun just walking various markets at night and seeing the diverse crowds. It is nonstop entertainment! Last but not least, the food is phenomenal here and available on almost every corner for next to nothing! No time for a history lesson here! Only two more days! Could be the last post....

Roger and Seng