24 Saturday, August 16th

[Jordan Markel]

Today started another voyage into Bangkok, this time with Big. Our destination was Big's house in downtown Bangkok, where we were to stay Saturday night to take a weekend off from the medical school. After taking a bus ride, a taxi, and a short walk, we arrived at Big's house. Sometime in between all our stops, we got to see a few of the national statues and monuments. Big's house was a beatiful multi storied condo. His mom ordered us American-style delivery pepporoni pizza to help us feel more at home; she is extremely nice. Later that afternoon, Big and his sister went along with us to see the historic Victory Monument, and best of all the Grand Palace. It was quite the experience for all of us, because Big and his sister had not been there themselves for over 8 years. Outside the grand palace, I learned a first hand lesson about Karma. The entire episode was completely funny to me, especially because Karma is a major part of Buddhism and we were getting ready to enter the Grand Palace and the Grand Temple. The story: Silk paintings were on sale outside at the market in front of the Palace, and so Zayar and I began haggling with different vendors. When Zayar and I met back up, he had ended up paying about 5 times as much per painting as I did, so I began jokingly messing with him for the next while. When we arrived at the Grand Palace, I had to pay the entrance fee, while Zayar was let in for free because they confused him for a Thai native. The price of the admission fee was exactly the price difference in what we had paid for the paintings!

Later on, we met up with Big's parents and they took us out to get Thai massages at a place that is considered one of the best. At the massage parlor, I indulged in gourmet ice cream in unique flavors such as green tea and cheese danish. After the massage parlor, we ate at a Chinese restaurant with Big's entire immediate family. The food was amazing, I ate so much I crashed immediately upon getting back to Big's place.