airlai.com  ericlai.com

This, by the way, was the first time I'd ever been to Taiwan (or Asia, for that matter) since I was three years old.  Hopefully I was saved when my caretakers said "no" to pornography.

After an additional stop in Hong Kong, I managed in land in Bangkok on Wednesday at pretty much full strength.  Avi's driver (one of two he has in Thailand, I would later learn) met me at the airport, where we learned that Avi's flight had been delayed by a couple hours.  To pass the time, the driver (whose name I unfortunately can neither pronounce nor spell) drove me to the local Big C (think K-Mart and an indoor mall rolled into one building), where he took care of some shopping and I struggled for over an hour to place an international call to my folks back in California.  After a considerable amount of wrangling with the public pay phone, I managed to place a five- or six-minute call to my mom -- a call that my credit card bill is now telling me cost $19.76.  AT&T bastards. 

Once this episode was done, we rolled out of Big C and back to the airport.  Let me take this moment to point out that, until this day, I'd never thought I'd see a city with more pollution and traffic than L.A.  Now I know that such a city exists, and its name is Bangkok.  While this first day of city driving wasn't too horrible, I would later find out how bad Thai traffic can really get.

Back at Bangkok International Airport, we waited a little longer, and finally Avi arrived.  His driver took us to his uncle's office at United Nations Telecommunications, where we picked up his uncle.  Finally, we embarked on the long drive back to the Sukhumvit area, site of Avi's uncle's apartment -- our home base for the trip -- and the location of my first authentic Thai dinner.  After arriving at the apartment, Avi and I headed down to a local restaurant, Thon Krueng, that he's frequented for twenty years.  There, I quickly learned a number of rules that I found apply to all Thai restaurants in Thailand:

1.  There is no dish at a U.S. Thai restaurant that would cost more than US$2.50 in Thailand.
2.  Authentic Thai food is far less greasy than Americanized Thai food.
3.  Authentic Thai food is much spicier than Americanized Thai food (this is a very good thing in my book).
4.  Authentic Thai food features incredible seafood dishes that Americanized Thai restaurants don't attempt, let alone serve.
5.  Ka Prow Gai ("basil leaf chicken") is the greatest Thai dish ever.  Keep your Pad Thai away from me.
6.  Singha = yum.

Following a great dinner, we hung out with Apichai, one of Avi's lifelong friends, at a local ice cream parlor.  I don't eat ice cream, but good times were had by all.  The trip was off to an auspicious start.

Taipei and Hong Kong are sixteen hours ahead of Los Angeles.  Bangkok is fifteen hours ahead.

On 29 December 2004, the weather in Bangkok was 88°F during the day and 70°F at night.