Bangkok concerns

Nadim and I recently visited with a friend of mine from work, Bruce, who is very good friends with a couple, Bruce and Ple, who just moved to Canada from Thailand. Bruce had invited Bruce and Ple as well so that we could gather some info from the souce. Bruce is Canadian, but has travelled extensively, and his wife Ple is Thai, and also seems to have done a fair bit of traveling. My friend's wife Karen recently went to Thailand with Ple so it was great to get her perspective on Thailand as well.

We had a great chat about Thailand and Southeast Asia in general. We really enjoyed our afternoon visit. Of course with many of these visits it raises as many questions as it answers. It's a good thing we exchanged e-mail for follow-up questions!

The big thing that we came away with is rethinking the amount of time that we want to stay in Bangkok area. It is a very big city with some serious traffic and pollution issues. We had initially thought to make it our base for the duration of our Thailand trip and make a couple of side trips to the north and the south while there, but now we are re-considering. We've decided to do a little more reading, and get in touch with our Baha'i friends to seek out the network of other Baha'is in Thailand.

The other big question we had for ourselves was "Do we want to see the Thai attractions, or the Thai people?" The answer is of course, a bit of both. Although Bangkok is close to many of the attractions, it doesn't seem the most likly place to see the real Thai people.

Hmmm..... more thinking required on this one.

CM