Planes, trains...

It's sooo nice to have our Internet connection back. We've called our travel agent to finalize our plans for getting to India, we've booked a flight to Cambodia, and we've made hotel arrangements for Cambodia and will soon make them for Chaing Mai too. It's so great to be able to look things up and makes some plans.

We couldn't book train tickets online so we headed off to Bangkok train station. We were a bit worried about availability. I'm glad we went in and booked the tickets because the first class sleepers were already booked up for the dates we wanted and I'm sure the second class ones would have been gone soon too. We settled on second class sleeper tickets which I think should be fine.

I get a kick out of the traffic in Bangkok. You see tuk tuks, motorcycles, old buses, new buses, taxis of all different colours, and regular cars too. I thought I'd share the picture to illustrate.

Back in Nonthaburi, our part of town, we went to the newly completed Central Plaza. It is absolutely huge! It has seven floors. One floor has movie theatres, games, and other entertainment type shops, another has tons of restaurants, another is mostly technology related, yet another is dedicated to beauty and weight loss shops, and of course there are lots of clothing shops and things as well. We finished off our Christmas shopping and then went to the movie theatre.

Looking around the shopping centre was a bit strange. With it sunny and hot outside it doesn't seem quite right. I also find that although the decorations are up, people don't have the same Christmas spirit that we have back home. I miss strangers wishing us "Merry Christmas!" It seems quite phony and commercial to be honest. They have this huge Christmas tree that is three stories tall in the mall, and they have "Frosty the Snowman" playing, but I can't quite believe that tomorrow is really Christmas.

CM