Thailand
Well, today is my first day in Thailand. I can say that I've definitely been ripped off already, but as the day has gone along I've become more aware of how not to be ripped off and how to bargain for a good price. Though, if only it wasn't on 2 tailor made suits, 4 tailor made shirts and 2 ties that I was ripped off on. Sure, they will be nice suits and nice shirts, Italian wool, Egyptian cotton, and I paid a hell of a lot cheaper than I'd pay in Australia. But I still reckon I'm paying twice as much as I need to. Oh well, gotta learn somehow! Just hope I don't run out of money....The highlight of today has been riding in tuk tuks. I love it. This guy took me on a tour, we agreed a price of 20 baht (60-70c), and then he took me to some temples. Stuff the temples. He then took me to all these shops that sell clothes and jewelery, which he gets money for taking me there. He kept saying "just one more place". He was taking advantage of me, yes, but the fact is, I loved screaming around dangerously in those little tricycles. There are no road rules in Thailand, we probably spent more time on the wrong side of the road than anything else, and you know how when you're turning right at traffic lights you first wait for the oncoming traffic to pass? Nup, he just went before they got there. And then there were the tiny backstreets, almost running people over as we went. He ended up not charging me because we went to so many places that he got money for. I loved it.I also took the sky rail, that was a good way to see Thailand, and a ferry up the river. The people here are really friendly, if you're standing around looking lost, within 30 seconds someones asking if they can help you. Very different to Australia.Anyway, I've got better things to do than blog!!Posted 14 September 2006
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Hi! My name is James Roper, and I am a software developer with a particular interest in open source
development and trying new things. I program in Scala, Java, Go, PHP, Python and Javascript, and I work
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