- Berna
DANGEROUS SMILING FACES
As you know Thailand is hosting a lot of foreigners. You can meet a lot of people from England, USA and elsewhere who live in Thailand for 10 or 15 years. When I ask them about their experience with Thai people they say: be careful. What ever you say they are smiling! You can get angry and talk loudly, they will smile to you again but at the end they can put a gun to your head with a smile on their face; so be careful.
In northern Thailand some villagers invited us to their house but in the touristic parts of the south they are a little more distant to foreigners. They are only smiling you and if they can earn some money from you for any reason they are getting happy. However, your relationship will be limited to these 2 topics: smiling and money.

Muslim people in southern Thailand have a problem with dogs. God created this animal but for them, if they touch a dog, they "can die :/“. Cause of this reason Mutlu mostly stayed next to Rouletout and couldn't join us for boat trips to Tonsai or elsewhere. Muslim women are doing perfect food: Pad Thai, sticky rice, curries, chicken (my father is a big fan of chicken and his preferred place normally is KFC. But he said Thai's fried chicken is best) ...you can see motorbikes with an open kitchen at the back and while the bike is going she is cooking back there :).
Bangkok is another story. It is a really big city and has huge shopping malls. In one of them I got lost and it took me 1 hour to find the right exit. In the city it is a better idea to use the motorbike taxis. They are cheap and faster compared to car taxis. Negotiation is soo important; Mostly try to get your things half of the price they said. In Bangkok I firstly was using our motorbike but one time in front of a high line barrier police catched me.

We went to a police station with 3 motorbikes and 2 cars. Unfortunately and despite the importance of tourism many are not talking English and cause of that police couldn't explain to me why they stopped me and why they were escorting me to the police station like that crowded. I was thinking I am going to prison because maybe I entered the King or Military area. At the end they took then me 500 baht and explained to me that it is forbidden for motorbikes to enter a highway.
You can see King's areas all over Thailand and of course it is forbidden to enter these areas. This made me curios about the King. However, you can not find a lot of info about him. He is soo old now. He studied natural sciences and politics and law in Switzerland in the 1940s. His hobby is photography and playing the saxophone. Sometimes we went to the cinema. Before the movie starts you must stand up and watch a short movie about the King. You will always see him with a camera and with his dog(s).
It is forbidden by law to talk badly about the King. From time to time you can hear that someone is put in prison because he talked badly about the King; Mostly they are getting at least 10 years prison :@. You can only find info about the King's son. The family of the wife did some money laundering and the son got divorced; this is the only info publicly available about the King's family.

Ladyboys are a lot in Thailand
In Ao Nang you can find some tall girls with sexy corset costumes that would like to take pictures with you (you must pay of course!! ;) and hand you over a brochure for their show. For 500 baht you will experience a 1.5 hours show plus one drink; Ladyboys are dancing and singing. I find it a quite clever idea to earn money and do a cool show. Anyways better than drinking 3 beers for the same price.
Thai people are still mysterious for me, as is the King.