One Night In Bangkok...

...and the world's your oyster. Everybody knows the first line of the chorus of that song, but how many of you know the second line? Huh...HUH??? We've actually been here two nights already, but who's counting.
All in all, it took us twenty-four hours door-to-door from Binningen to Bangkok. It seems like a long time, but the flight seemed short due to the excellent service given by Singapore Airlines. They RULE!!! The food: excellent! The seats: very comfotable! The on-board entertainment: superb! The flight attendants: BABES! Everybody bowed and smiled constantly. The trip was a real pleasure, and I'm looking forward to the return flight home.

So, we arrived at our hotel. And...here's how we looked after the 24-hour journey. We were tired, but I wasn't too tired to notice that the weight limit of the elevator is: "11 people / 750 kg." Uh...wait a minute. I may have been groggy, but if my math's correct, that comes out to 68.18/150 lbs. per person. I guess the people are a little bit smaller here than I'm used to. Even though I've lost quite a bit of weight lately, the elevator weight limit is still just over "7 TBFs".
We decided to take a nap before dinner, and our two-hour nap turned into a four-hour nap (we slept through the alarm). We went downstairs and had dinner in the hotel bar (where all the "kids" hang out, and the music is loud!). We had Thai food (surprise!), and it was...TERRIFIC. I was surprised to find that it tastes exactly like Thai food tastes in Chicago. So, I'm glad to know that the Thai food in Chicago is fairly authentic (or else our hotel food is Americanized!). Plus, it was really cheap. As a matter of fact, everything is pretty cheap here. You take a 25 minute taxi ride, and it costs something equivalent to about $2.50 U.S. A main course portion of Pad Thai at our hotel cost about $6.50 U.S. (cheap for hotel food!). It would cost WAY MORE in Switzerland - especially the taxi.
When we got back to the room, I couldn't fall asleep. I tossed and turned, and then I decided to take a sleeping pill (my first one ever) that our friend Tom gave me a couple of months ago. I took the pill at 2:00 a.m., I felt it beginning to work at about 2:03 a.m., and the next thing I knew it was 8:15 a.m. I woke up with Mrs. TBF standing next to the bed with the "where's a bucket of water" look on her face. It was time to go downstairs for breakfast where afterwards about ten people pretty much simultaneously bowed at us (in Thailand they bow while putting their hands together in a praying gesture in front of their chests). It makes me feel pretty God-like - and I like it!
It was time to do a little exploring. It was time to explore the heart of Bangkok...