Photos

Here are some pictures from Thailand and Laos!

This is from that giant wat (Buddhist temple) in Bangkok. These are Buddha's feet.

I'm such a tourist. I did a temple tour while in Bangkok, and some guy took my picture before entering some site. When I came out, he sold me this pin, and a ton of postcards for $1.

A pagoda north of Bangkok, in Ayuthaya, Thailand's old capitol. It was sacked by Myanmar a few times, but it is surrounded by rivers so in theory provided good defense. They have some spectacular pagodas and ruins in the center of town, which were beautifully lit at night.

Cycling in Asia can be extremely dirty. That is not a tan! This leads to infection when I scratch the back of my knees (from eczema).

Can you see the rainbow? In Thailand's second-largest city, Nakhon Ratchasima.

From the same hotel window. Lodging is less than four dollars per night, but it isn't always pretty. Sometimes as low as $2.50, and sometimes even $1.75.

This was the second staple I found in this delightful pastry.

In Khon Kaen, at a really cheap hotel again, about to hit the town.

The following series is of a really trippy hotel I stayed at in Udon Thani in Northern Thailand. This is normally more than I can afford (it was like $7.50) but I had no options- both Lonely Planet mentions had shut down, and some guy I met knew the owner and got me a discount. There were no other tourists here in Udon Thani, and, as Lonely Planet puts it, people seemed "flustered" at the sight of a western face, desite the US having placed its largest air base here during the Vietnam War. Note the faux windows.

That's worth about seventeen cents

Thai MTV features announcements by pop stars warning about HIV. These and other popular outreach programs make Thailand a leader in the HIV fight. Although Thailand is considered a relative success story in the HIV fight, in southern Thailand I got the impression that there are still large segments of the population who are largely ignorant of the epidemic. This may be due to the socially conservative Muslim population in that area or the civil war being waged.

In Vientiane, Laos. I'm not exactly sure what this is, but there were lots of tourists here to I thought I'd join them. That three-wheeled vehicle is a tuk-tuk, a taxi. They aren't metered and I've been ripped of several times by them. They are all over the place. This is probably the largest street in Vientiane, it's a very, very small capitol.

Tourism brings a lot of money to the capitol. Many French people in particular, as Laos used to be a French colony, I think it got independence it 1959. French influence still remains. Many buildings downtown are obviously european, and street vendors sell baguettes, which seem very out of place. Official buildings are also labeled in French, like the Ministere de l'Education.

This is inside the dome of that building. This appears to be a relic of early Theravada Buddism.

Don't know who they are.