American vs America

Nothing much happened today. We rented a scooter drove to Wat Doi Suthep where for the first time tour guides and shops were aimed at the Thai tourists not the Western tourists. It's really a shame how exploited something so sacred has gotten. There are signs everywhere about dressing and acting respectfully in the Wat and in the presence of the Buddha but once you remove your shoes and cover your knees there are people everywhere trying to get you to pay them to take your picture and inside the Wat they have all kinds of shops as well as about halfway up the 300+ steps are food stalls and souvenir shops. This is a place where most Thais do there pilgrimage and people are marketing off of it.

After that we made a restocking trip to their version of Walmart and ate an overpriced pizza for dinner. Did we mention that in most towns you can either eat Thai or Italian?

As we have mentioned there are very few American travelers here and the ones that are around don't have the best reputation. We've met a few groups who told us the other Americans they've met have been very curt or just downright rude. One person said they met an American who put a Canadian flag on their pack back because they said Canadians get more respect.

The funny part is while there are little to no Americans traveling here, the culture of Amercia is EVERYWHERE. Major league sports, Katy Perry, John Denver (we hear him at least once a day!), Coca Cola, Abercrombie, etc. Most advertisements are in Thai but the people in them are white skinned, blond hair, blue eyed. All of their skin care products claim to have whitening abilities, face wash, lotions, soap, even deodorant.

And how do you spot an American in Thailand? They are the ones walking in the wrong side of the street. They drive in the left here therefore they walk on the left, we are constantly realizing that we're going on the wrong way. Luckily for us Thais are kind and confrontation is basically nonexistent so they just plow around us until we realize and move with the traffic flow.