Comfort and security are the greatest dangers to an adventurer, according to William Least Heat Moon (the guy who wrote Blue Highways). In that case, we were in so much danger in Bangkok we almost never got out. We planned to stay one week, just long enough to get our Laos and China visas. We ended up staying 17 days.

For about $10.50 a night we holed up in a small hotel room with all our favorite acronyms: AC, HBO, ESPN, CNN, and HW (hot water). Three computers in the lobby offered cheap internet access (2.5 baht a minute, or 120 baht/hour with a discount, which works out to US$3 an hour). We found a good breakfast place where we soon just ordered "the usual"--scrambled eggs and a watermelon shake for Joan, and a cheese & tomato omelet with coffee for me.

Our hotel, Sawasdee Inn, Bangkok, in an alley near Khao San Road, offered a free breakfast with the room but the service was so bad we only went once. We've been working on how to communicate with people with whom we share no common language. It's always tough, but this place was just about impossible. All over the hotel they had posted the simple, two-item breakfast menu--"Set 1" and "Set 2." We asked for "Set 2" but the waitress couldn't understand. Finally we pointed to the sign on the wall next to the table. Still she seemed uncertain. When the meal finally arrived, it was the wrong one. (Joan: also, the coupon was good for only one breakfast, but they couldn't understand why we might want to use a coupon for one breakfast and pay for another. They spent several minutes trying to tell us we could only get one breakfast. We said we understood, then ordered two. They seemed to understand, but brought only one. We asked for another and they said they couldn't since the coupon was only good for one. Ten minutes later we managed to get it across. It was totally not worth it. The breakfast was bad). Another time I tried to order a beer--I even pointed to the beer in the fridge--but they didn't understand. When pointing doesn't work we're lost.

For dinner we went to Hemlock's, the awesome restaurant our former San Francisco neighbor Dave showed us, as often as possible. (Travelers: it's directly across the street from the Banglampu ferry stop. The sidewalk in front is black and white stones. Try the green curry squid and the spicey beef salad).

Joan was sick for several days while we waited for our visas so we didn't do much. Early on I found the cheapest markets in the area. Every day I ran the rounds, picking up ice, drinks and munchies. We used the sink as a cooler. For several days, we tried to gain weight on junk food while watching whatever movies HBO spilled out during the hot part of the afternoon.

Movies we saw: Sabrina, The Mirror has two Faces (Streisand), The Killing Fields, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mask, Daylight (Stallone), The Competition (Dreyfuss) and many others. We watched just about everything except one slasher flick called Dead Kids.

Kris and Anne, our Singapore hosts, flew into town and got us ut of our rut and into a party mood.

Events of Bangkok:

The amulet market--a huge maze of at least 100 tiny dimly lit shops crammed together selling Buddhist amulets. Most of the amulets were key-ring size but they had lots of bigger things including larger-than-life-sized wooden phalluses.

"That's a lie"--As we approached a temple, a friendly man told us the temple was to closed foreigners, and was for Thai people only. We were all familiar with this con. Next he would take us to some "special place" where we could buy souvenirs, and he would earn a commission. Joan immediately said "That's a lie." It was sickening how friendly this guy acted when in fact he was totally deceitful. People like that cause us to trust no one. Anne was disappointed that Joan jumped in so soon; she wanted to hear the rest of the guy's con. We laughed for days over Joan's line.

Taxi Drivers --Most of the taxi drivers were fine, but some don't seem to know their way around. Twice we had to get out of cabs at odd places because the drivers couldn't figure out where we wanted to go, even after we showed them on a map that featured the names of places in Thai script. One driver held our map upside down.

Khao San Road, our strange neighborhood--This street is like no other I've ever seen. A combination of Las Vegas and Berkeley, Calif. in a narrow Asian street. We stayed here because it is cheap and has all the services we needed: travel agencies, international phones (our MCI calling card doesn't work from regular payphones in Bangkok), email, visa services, English language bookstores, American breakfasts. Lots and lots of budget travelers stay here--especially a lot of Westerners in their early 20s with nose, nip, tongue, eyebrow and every other conceivable piercing. Tattoos too. Kris kept saying, "haven't these people ever heard of Hepatitus?" Sidewalk stands sell laminated I.D. cards for 'journalists' and 'students' (just supply the passport photo) for a few bucks' worth of baht. France '98, that irritating soccer World Cup, played on every large screen TV, of which there were many. One day I saw baseball playing on a TV in a bar. Before I could finish thinking, "That won't stay on long," I heard a man with a heavy German accent ask the waitress to change the channel. We counted nearly 100 internet computers in more than a dozen inet cafes up and down the street.

Haircut and heroin--One night in a dimly lit alley s strung-out looking skinny probably German guy with a scruffy beard like mine asked if he could ask me a question. "Do you know where I can get some heroin around here?" We politely said no. On the way home, I got a haircut and beard trim, so I wouldn't be mistaken for a heroin addict again.

Near disaster: most men in Southeast Asia either can't or don't grow beards. It's been my fear every time I get a trim that a barber will misunderstand and relieve me of my whole beard. It almost happened that night. While testing to see how close I wanted my cut, my hair cutter lopped off almost all of one sideburn. (Joan: Eric was remarkably calm. He just smiled and said, "too close" when she asked if that was right. I was thinking maybe this was my one chance in life to see him clean-shaven). I ended up with a very short beard and no sideburns at all. Joan was cheering for me to cut it all off.

Newton user--We met another freelance writer traveling around the worked with a Newton. He was staying in the same hotel as us.

A woman named Ooh--We met a very friendly woman named Ooh who manages Hello internet cafe. She had the best rates when we were there!

On July 3, 10 days behind schedule, we left. We regretted our timing since we knew our friend Dave might be arriving that night. But we were already running very late, and we wanted to leave the country before our visas expired.

Next: ride across Thailand.

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