Thailand day 3

I woke up early and walked around the neighborhood while pablo and Alonso were still asleep. I got to get a good feel of the place by seeing; cafes, food shops and massage parlors open up. Right now my impression of Thailand is that its a beautiful mix between Indonesia and Japan. Its like Indonesia in the sense that; povery is quite provailant and you can find small pockets of agriculture everywhere. Its similar to Japan in the snese that; the infrastructure is very good, people abide by road rules and small gimmicky items are sold at corner shops.

One of the Scottish girls joined us to tour the 'white temple' down south (that's not a sexual reference, I promise).  We caught a songthaew (a large tuktuk) for just 300 baht. It was really cool. It was unlike any temple I've seen before, it was extremely modern and fancy. Everything was so pointy and the paint had no signs of decay or aging. Once you got inside you could see a monk praying and artists along the walls painting. To my surprise the artists were decorating the inside with paintings of modern western commic book figures and events. There was a picture of batman reaching for a mobile phone, Neo holding a gun and the twin towers being destroyed by a snake made out of a petrol pump. Im no english major, but if i were to hazzard a guess id say that the main message was to communicate the evils of human greed and consumerism. Connected to this was a giant gold building that was beautifully decorated with clay heads. It turns out that the building was actually a bathroom. I'm happy to inform you that I have now pissed on a beautiful and sacred temple.

When we got back we said goodbye to the Scottish girls because they were traveling to some rainforest somewhere. We then took a tuktuk up north to the black temple. Sadly there were once again no brochures or sign posts around so you couldn't learn anything about the temple.

We had two hours to burn afterwards so we decided to get a massage. God it was painful. The poor girl tried to overcompensate for the fact I was 3 times her size by twisting me in ways I can't be twisted with brute force. Anyone watching the massage from afar would have thought it was a wrestling match between a petite Asian woman and an inflated corpse.

When we arrived we met a friendly American from Colorado called Dave. We started drinking in the hostel and I found out he's in his late 30's and traveling around the world. Apparently he's been on the road without any money for the last couple of years traveling everywhere in between Alaska and Brazil to Ireland and Malaysia. He talked about the joys and wonders of leaving your job and hitting road without looking back. I'm still trying to decide whether I find it an inspiring story or not.