Last evening, we safely arrived in Bangkok, Thailand.  The flights were long, but we made it!  And all of our luggage arrived! Praise God!

As soon as we got off the plane, we were able to experience a new and different kind of transportation….a songtaew…imagine a small pickup truck with a truck camper in the bed…but instead of a camper, it’s an open-air cart of sorts…yeah you’re probably totally lost…hopefully we’ll have pictures of the actual truck up soon. Until then, you’ll just have to check out the pictures of us ON the songtaew Anyway…we travelled down the highway in this pickup/cart going normal highway speeds. It was very refreshing to be speeding down the highway with the humid air swirling all around us.  

Here's one side of the songtaew...

...and the other side.

View from the back of the songtaew

This motorcycle was so close that we thought he was going to drive up INTO the songtaew with us!

A 30 minute trip in the songtaew brought us to the YWAM Thailand base in Bangkok where we will be staying for two nights before we head to Pattaya.  Since we got here very late (12:30am Thai Time; 11:30am PA time) , we all went straight to bed.  

This morning we had orientation with Paul, one of the staff members here at the base.  Paul taught us the basics about Thai culture and a few comical cultural expectations:

1) Do not make out with the monks If a monk is touched by a woman, he has to go through a two-week cleansing period.

2) Don’t jump on the squatty potties (What’s a squatty potty?  pictures coming soon…)

3) Expect questions from Thai people like “Why are you so fat?” “Why are you not married yet? and “What kind of birth control do you use?”

Let’s just say orientation was quite entertaining

After orientation, we went out to eat our first authentic Thai meal at Daow Bakery...DELICIOUS!  

Lunch at Daow Bakery..Daow = turtle

Following lunch, we split into two groups to go on a Scavenger Hunt.  We each had a list of specific tasks we had to do, including buying exotic fruit, finding skin whitening cream (In Thailand, the whiter your skin is, the more beautiful…POWER TO THE RED HEADS! ) and finding fried insects. Unfortunately (I guess unfortunately) we were unsuccessful in finding the insects…but our search is not over yet!

Rambutan (Ngo) - Green & red hairy pod, sweet fruit.

Overall, everyone seems to be adapting well to Thailand.  Some of us are still pretty sleepy, some are concerned about the interesting bathroom situation, and others are excited & anxious about our outreach in Pattaya.  

Signing off for today…

Marisa & Nicole