Bangkok

It appears I arrived during the Rainy season.

My first day - I head to a fancy-pants hospital down the road from my hostel, and get myself checked out. A clean bill of health, so I feel pretty confident now about my onward travels.

On to MBK - the huge 8 floor shopping mall in Bangkok where I pick up a pretty cheap cellphone, and get myself a SIM card, thus giving me a Bangkok phone number, and the ability to make calls within thailand at 1Bt (2.5 cents) per minute - one wonders why US carriers can't offer service like this. I'll be taking the phone with me wherever I go, although, I'll probably get a new SIM card in each country I go to.

Day two appears to be a wash... 24 hours of non stop rain.

I make it to Khao San Road, the backpacker ghetto, on the other side of town, and start pricing onward travel. Bangkok is very wet right now, Northern Thailand is flooded, Burma, Vietnam and Laos are all in their wet season right now too, so clearly, this is not the best place to be.

The chap sitting next to me on the plane to Bangkok was an international aid worker from Sri Lanka, and told me that this is the perfect time to visit... so, it looks like I'll be heading there.

I've priced out a one-way flight from Bangkok-Chennai/Madras, which allows for a free stop in Sri Lanka, for about $250. With any luck, I should be able to fly out of here either Friday, or Saturday. At some point, I'll need to pick up a visa for India (which I should have done before I left, but assumed that India didn't require Visas of Brits).. but for Sri Lanka, I don't need one.

In the mean time, I'll probably spend my time drinking Thai Whiskey, and getting rather expensive (for this part of the world) massages at $5/hour.