After being mainly overwhelmed by Bangkok yesterday I started being a good tourist today. I'm also pleasently surprised that I don't suffer from jet lag at all! It seems like the combination of taking Melatonin and drinking a lot of water really helps the body to adjust.

Yes, right: Water. I said water! I haven't drunk any alcohol since I got on the plane. Which is hard. Especially considering the many nice-lookig cocktails you find here and the heavy-drinking hostel-crowd I'm hanging out with. Oh, btw: Guess what was the first language I heard on Bangkok airport. No, it wasn't Thai. It was Swedish!

And I even met some more Swedes in the street-kitchen where we were having lunch today. Speaking of stret-kitchen: I think they are really cool and really scary at the same time. On the one hand it just rocks to be be able to get something to eat whereever you are at whatever time. But if you are used to german hygenic standards at look at their equipment you'd want to turn around and start screaming. But so far I've stuck to the rule "eat where the locals eat (even if it's scary)" and did rather well.

In the hostel I met a group of really nice Australians (how useful!) with whom I had been hanging out last night and with one of whom I did some sightseeing today. My personal highlight: The massage I got at Wat Pho, one of Thailands most important temples. That was nice! I was just surprised that you remained fully dressed. It's not what I know as a massage from back home where your muscles are being oiled and kneaded. It's more pulling joints and putting pressure on certain parts of the body. Differerent but nice and very relaxing!

Afterwards we took a bus back to the guest house and noticed something funny: tourists dont seem to bother with the public transport system here. On all of our bus-trips we were the only tourists! Which was also nice in some way.

Back home I tried to buy the silk yarn I owe Jennifer for programming the blog but couldn't get it anywhere. The shops and tailors I asked recommended that I'd try to get it in Chiang Mai. Apparently that's where silk is being woven in Thailand.

A short time after that botched shopping-attempt I remembered that I still had one Hepatitis-vaccacination outstanding and went to the Bumrungrad Hospital that is just around the corner from the guest house. That place is fucking huge! On the ground floor it looks more like a hotel (yes, they do have valet parking), the first floor is a bit like a shopping mall and the second looks like you'd expect.

There is one thing I simply can't get over with: When you enter the hospital, just in front of the escalators, there is a large "non-smoking"-sign and under it the text "Because we care for your health". And then, if you take the escalators the first thing you see is a McDonalds. Inside the hospital! "We care for your health"? Uh-huh.

Anyhow: Hospital staff was really nice and friendly and I'd go there again any time. Actually I never felt so well cared for in any hospital before. Before they got me the vaccacine they sat me into a chair and three nurses examined me at the same time! One was standing to my left taking my pulse, the second was standing to the right, taking my blood pressure and a third came up front and put a thermometer in my mouth. It felt hillarious!