Last Night In Bangkok - Eating Crickets and Scorpions

I had planned on a quiet night - a night of planning for India, a night of packing, a night of reflection before leaving SE Asia for the next leg of my trip...

Instead, last night in Bangkok was an evening of debauchery and drinking like I thought I was in high school again. I spent the night drinking "buckets" - the type of drink that an 18-year-old chooses because "You can't even taste the alcohol dude!!" I have only seen buckets in Thailand and they are vile. They consist, literally, of a large pail (hence the name "bucket") filled with ice, 12 oz. of Sangsom (Thai) whisky, a small bottle of Red Bull and topped off with coke. Insert four straws and it becomes the communal drink of the people you are out with - in my case, two 23-year-old Germans and a 24 year-old from Chile who insisted I get trashed on my last night in Bangkok.

Let's just put it this way - the night ended with me eating a cricket leg and the ass of a fried scorpion at 4 am. Yeah.

So tonight I say goodbye to SE Asia and fly to India. I am sad about this so...

Things I Will Miss About SE Asia

1. Cute, friendly kids
2. Thai, Cambodian and Laos food
3. Drives past rice paddies on the back of a motorbike
4. Angkor Wat
5. Cheap food at night markets
6. Caving
7. Swimming in clear lagoons
8. Local hospitality (except for in Vietnam)
9. Eager locals who want to practice their English
10. Waxy, dead communist leaders
11. Vietnamese karaoke
12. The pastries - I will miss the pastries SO much
13. Watching sunsets (I never paid much attention to sunsets when I was at home in Canada)




















Things I Will Not Miss About SE Asia

1. Monkeys
2. Rats
3. Cockroaches
4. Aggressive Vietnamese touts - "Cyclo madame? Bracelet madame? You come into my store madame? Pineapple lady?"
5. Asian hoarkers
6. Vietnamese food
7. "Massages" (aka torture)
8. Children with lice sitting next to me on local buses in Laos
9. Hue
10. Jackass scuba instructors
11. Mosquitos

So now I am halfway into the trip - 3 months to go. I had the most amazing time here in SE Asia and can only hope that the second half in India/Nepal/Tibet is just as good.