Israel -> Thailand quickies

Bangkok…. <yawn>

• The El-Al flight from Israel to Thailand has been as awful as I expected it to be. An ex-Israeli now-Australian elderly has been preaching to me the whole way why Brisbane is where I should be heading and why he had enough of Israel. They don’t have good Humus in Australia, though, he summarized.
• Bangkok has a new airport, they’re really improving. Thailand has a whole new cost of living for tourists. Stronger Baht (1US$ = ~33 Baht instead of ~40Baht a year ago) and high demand for just about everything Thai caused prices for tourists to go up between 10 to 50 percent since last year. Maybe the same thing happened in Israel with the Shekel, I’m not sure.
• Kao Shan Rd. is more commercial than ever before and – as far as my Israeli perspective allows – is dominated by Israelis, Korean and Japanese.
• Bangkok is unbearably hot. I was in the area during this season before, and I don’t remember anything quite like this.
• It’s scary how familiar everything is in Bangkok. I guess one doesn’t forget cities that fast, especially ones as traumatic as Bangkok. I wish I could have avoided stopping in Thailand for a day.

<Sigh>