Sawadee!

Hello from Thailand! We left Honolulu on Thanksgiving night and arrived in Bangkok on Friday night.  We spent one day touring around Bangkok, one day at the Chatuchak Weekend Market, and a day biking around the ruins of Ayyutthaya.  It's hotter in Bangkok during the cool season, than Hawaii in August.  This morning we flew to Chiang Mai, the largest city in the north.  The people in Bangkok say it's "cold" here, but we're not sure what "cold" means to them.  We're eating great food from the street vendors, sipping iced tea and coffee from plastic bags, and getting chatted-up by Thais practicing their English.  A thinks it's the national sport to find a tourist and talk to them.  That, and making tourists scamper across the street.  We've learned that the safest way to cross the street in Bangkok is to follow an elderly lady; they just fearlessly march off the curb.  Though there are many Caucasian tourists, the only Americans we met were Russian immigrants to Boston (and they were from A's boyhood neighborhood!).  When Thais hear that we are from America they say "Obama!".  Signing off from the cheapest gelato/internet cafe we've ever encoutered (about $1 for a scoop of gelato and $1 for an hour of internet).  Lots of love from us! And happy birthday Daddy-O!!