Back to Bangkok

I'm back in Bangkok as i wrote earlier on my twitter. Which you can by the way find on twitter.com/Bangkokstudent 

It has been taking me awhile to get rid of the jetlag, climate change, new enviroment and all the accompanying things but i already remember why i moved here in the first place. The first day i was out for a walk on my own soi i saw two kids playing. And obviously the thai-way of having fun as kids is throwing sand in each others eyes and also rocks in every size and form. Seems like a good fun to me, anyone up for some sandwar? I admit that in my country we also throw snowballs in wintertime and they can be damn evil if they're made at right time. They can be very cuddly and soft but at certain weather it will be alot of pain if u get hit by one. Some people even but their snowballs under the water for awhile to make it freeze and u understand that it means u will be throwing iceballs after awhile.

But my people are pagan caveman and i actually don't think anyone even expect's us to come up with any actual mindshaking inventions. Interesting topic though, u could tell u more of that sometime. But for now it's sleeping time, see you again.
/Timo Travel

Greetings from the land where people wait for green light even though there's no cars in sight

Bangkok is famous for it's crazy traffic and heaps of people everywhere. Somehow i still felt more stressed being at the Stockholm central station where the commuter trains and metro etc. leaves from. There should be only something like 1 million people in that city but it was damn crowded. In that matter there's no bigger differences between the two cities, but what's with the stress and running guys?

At the Stockholm station people were literally RUNNING around. Looked like chickens in a chicken farm or a kid running after buffalos with an ak-47. You really had to look to every direction to avoid getting hit. No "excuse me" or "pardon". Just "get out of the way, I'm coming and I'm an very important and busy person".

I'm not sure if it was just the reaction because I've just arrived from a country where everything goes with half-speed from scandinavia, but that was crazy! Are people really that busy? Are they really in such a hurry? In Thailand you would be sweaty after a minute of such 10km/h running-walk.

To me it's incredible how such a small city can feel so much more crowded and congested than a city 10 times the size. Maybe it's just peoples attitudes that differs. I cannot recall even once that i would have had a Thai running into me like a cannonball. Then again I'm usually 20cm taller and 20kg heavier than most Thais also. :)

Cheers readers!

Following message might upset some readers, but myself I'm very excited about the idea. As now I'm away from Bangkok for awhile, i can't update with stuff about Bangkok as frequent i would like to. However when i came back to Scandinavia i experienced shocks. Maybe culture-shocks? But at least in the two first days i experienced as many shocks as i did in one month in Thailand. So i guess one week in Scandinavia equals 3 months of shocks in Thailand.

So until I'm back to Thailand i will examine the things I've experienced here and try to tell you why I get shocked. What's weird about our countries and how it differs from the SE-Asian way of living.
I'm excited!!! :D

Culture Shock!

Back to Scandinavia for awhile. And i hadn't even come trough the passport control at the Arlanda airport before i remembered exactly why i moved away.

There's about 5 lines of people waiting to get to different counters with different immigration officials. However there was some airplane staff from our flight that came on the right side of us. Actually from another entrance, and they told us to excuse them for getting trough. No problem, because they took a couple from our line and then a couple from their line.

Do you think it was okay for everyone? OFCOURSE NOT! This guy infront of me start screaming about how he's a paying customer and he think this is bullshit. Employees shouldn't have those kind of benefits. He yelled for awhile. And then he forced himself trought to the immigration officer, yelled something similar to her. She just told him get back in line, she's in charge. :)

What did he really thing he could affect with his behaviour?

Funny pictures from Bangkok

In the following link you will find an explanation and some mockery of the most common pictures you will see tourist's taking in Bangkok. Including eating insects and ladyboys. To this list i would probably add photos of the heavy traffic.

http://www.cnngo.com/bangkok/play/6-most-cliched-bangkok-tourist-photo-ops-784503

Enjoy your reading.
//Timo Travel

KFC home-delivery

Living in a country where there is a totally different foodculture i can say that people
are extremely judgmental about expats eating western food. By this i mean other expats,
the local people usually don't give a damn about what you are eating.

I have a confession to make... today i ate KFC! And i don't feel even a little bit ashamed of that. It's totally normal to sometimes crave for something else. You have been brought up in a country where possibly everything is different considering food. For example in Thailand their main staple is rice while in the western countries we mostly eat potato. In Finland we eat bread every day while the Thais almost never. So i feel it is totally okay for me to eat something different sometimes. I mean there is maybe 100's of different cuisines to
choose from in Bangkok. It's the same everywhere nowadays. Doesn't matter in which part of
the world you are you can get food in a totally different style.

Then again i have western classmates who doesn't eat thai food AT ALL. Which in my opinion is maybe a little weird, but who am i to judge. I just happen to love food and eating is a big part of my life. And
if i wouldn't like the food here there is plenty of other countries with an interesting
cuisine where i'd rather live if that's the case.
Btw
KFC can be incredibly tasty at
times. ;)

Furthermore it was home-delivery!

A cheap day in Bangkok!

Don't get me wrong. There are millions of ways to spend money on food in Bangkok. However i will tell you about how little you can spend in a day if you want to. For western people it might be very difficult to keep up with the following for a very long time. But myself i eat like this a big portion of the days in Bangkok.

Breakfast - A youghurt and a Banana - about 20 baht total.
Lunch - At the cantine, rice and some sort of meat, chicken/pork - 20-25 baht total.
Dinner - Usually you eat them with some friends and mostly u share what's on the table - Price is usually about 40 to 60 baht.

You do the math, but i can give you some help. That's about 80 to 105 baht per day. in U.S dollars that is around 3$ for food FOR A WHOLE DAY.  Not bad ey?

However as i said there are millions of ways to eat in Bangkok and it can be very expensive. I will later tell you about the 1200 baht (40$) fish i ate yesterday. ;) Thank you for reading and have a nice day.

Timo Travel